THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 


STUDY     OF     WORDS 


ON    THE 


STUDY    OF    WORDS 


BY 

RICHARD   CHENEVIX   TRENCH,  D.D. 

ARCHBISHOP 


'  Language  is  the  armoury  of  the  human  inind,  and  at  once 
contains  the  trophies  of  its  past,  and  the  weapons  of  its  future, 
conquests ' — Coleridge. 

'Out,  idle  words,  servants  to  shallow  fools  !' — Shakespeare 


TWENTY-FOURTH   EDITION 

Revised    by    A.    L.    MAYHEW,    M.A. 

A  uthor  of  '  Synopsis  of  Old  English  Phonology 


LONDON 
KEGAN    PAUL,    TRENCH,    TRUBNER,   &    CO.    Ltd. 
PATERNOSTER   HOUSE,  CHARING  CROSS   ROAD 
l8( 


r\CDT 


{The  rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved) 


mm 


PF 
/f?3 


PREFACE 

TO 

THE   TWENTIETH   EDITION. 

In  all  essential  points  this  edition  of  The  Study 
of  Words  is  the  same  book  as  the  last  edition. 
The  aim  of  the  editor  has  been  to  alter  as  little 
of  Archbishop  Trench's  work  as  possible.  In 
the  arrangement  of  the  book,  in  the  order  of 
the  chapters  and  paragraphs,  in  the  style,  in  the 
general  presentation  of  the  matter,  no  change 
has  been  made.  On  the  other  hand,  the  work 
has  been  thoroughly  revised  and  corrected.  A 
great  deal  of  thought  and  labour  has  of  late 
been  bestowed  on  English  philology,  and  there 
has  been  a  great  advance  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  laws  regulating  the  development  of  the 
sounds  of  English  words,  and  the  result  has 
been  that  many  a  derivation  once  generally 
accepted  has  had  to  be  given  up  as  phonetically 
impossible.  An  attempt  has  been  made  to 
purge  the  book  of  all  erroneous  etymologies,  and 


vi  Preface. 

to  correct  in  the  text  small  matters  of  detail. 
There  have  also  been  added  some  footnotes,  in 
which  difficult  points  are  discussed  and  where 
reference  is  given  to  recent  authorities.  All 
editorial  additions,  whether  in  the  text  or  in 
the  notes,  are  enclosed  in  square  brackets.  It  is 
hoped  that  the  book  as  it  now  stands  does  not 
contain  in  its  etymological  details  anything  in- 
consistent with  the  latest  discoveries  of  English 
scholars. 

A.   L.   MAYHEW. 

Wadham  College,  Oxford  : 
August   1888. 


In  the  present  edition  the  work  has  been 
carefully  revised  and  corrected. 

A.  L.  M. 

Oxford  : 

February  1893. 


PREFACE 

TO 

THE     FIRST     EDITION. 

THESE  lectures  will  not,  I  trust,  be  found  any- 
where to  have  left  out  of  sight  seriously,  or  for 
long,  the  peculiar  needs  of  those  for  whom  they 
were  originally  intended,  and  to  whom  they 
were  primarily  addressed.  I  am  conscious, 
indeed,  here  and  there,  of  a  certain  departure 
from  my  first  intention,  having  been  in  part 
seduced  to  this  by  a  circumstance  which  I  had 
not  in  the  least  contemplated  when  I  obtained 
permission  to  deliver  them,  by  finding,  namely, 
that  I  should  have  other  hearers  besides  the 
pupils  of  the  Training-School.  Some  matter 
adapted  for  those  rather  than  for  these  I  was 
thus  led  to  introduce — which  afterwards  I  was 
unwilling,  in  preparing  for  the  press,  to  remove  ; 
on  the  contrary  adding  to  it  rather,  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  thus  a  somewhat  wider  circle  of 
readers  than  I  could  have  hoped,  had  I  more 
rigidly  restricted  myself  in  the  choice  of  my 
materials.  Yet  I  should  greatly  regret  to  have 
admitted  so   much   of  this    as   should  deprive 


viii  Preface. 

these  lectures  of  their  fitness  for  those  whose 
profit  in  writing  and  in  publishing  I  had  mainly 
in  view,  namely  schoolmasters,  and  those  pre- 
paring to  be  such. 

Had  I  known  any  book  entering  with  any 
fulness,  and  in  a  popular  manner,  into  the 
subject-matter  of  these  pages,  and  making  it 
its  exclusive  theme,  I  might  still  have  delivered 
these  lectures,  but  should  scarcely  have  sought 
for  them  a  wider  audience  than  their  first,  gladly 
leaving  the  matter  in  their  hands,  whose  studies 
in  language  had  been  fuller  and  riper  than  my 
own.  But  abundant  and  ready  to  hand  as  are 
the  materials  for  such  a  book,  I  did  not ;  while 
yet  it  seems  to  me  that  the  subject  is  one  to 
which  it  is  beyond  measure  desirable  that  their 
attention,  who  are  teaching,  or  shall  have  here- 
after to  teach,  others  should  be  directed  ;  so  that 
they  shall  learn  to  regard  language  as  one  of  the 
chiefest  organs  of  their  own  education  and  that 
of  others.  For  I  am  persuaded  that  I  have  used 
no  exaggeration  in  saying,  that  for  many  a 
young  man  '  his  first  discovery  that  words  are 
living  powers,  has  been  like  the  dropping  of 
scales  from  his  eyes,  like  the  acquiring  of  another 
sense,  or  the  introduction  into  a  new  world,' — 
while  yet  all  this  may  be  indefinitely  deferred, 
may,  indeed,  never  find  place  at  all,  unless  there 
is  some  one  at  hand  to  help  for  him,  and  to 
hasten  the  process  ;  and  he  who  so  does,  will 
ever  after  be  esteemed  by  him  as  one  of  his 


Preface.  ix 

very  foremost  benefactors.  Whatever  may  be 
Home  Tooke's  shortcomings  (and  they  are 
great),  whether  in  details  of  etymology,  or  in 
the  philosophy  of  grammar,  or  in  matters  more 
serious  still,  yet,  with  all  this,  what  an  epoch  in 
many  a  student's  intellectual  life  has  been  his 
first  acquaintance  with  TJu  Diversions  of  Pur  ley. 
And  they  were  not  among  the  least  of  the  obli- 
gations which  the  young  men  of  our  time  owed 
to  Coleridge,  that  he  so  often  himself  weighed 
words  in  the  balances,  and  so  earnestly  pressed 
upon  all  with  whom  his  voice  went  for  anything, 
the  profit  which  they  would  find  in  so  doing. 
Nor,  with  the  certainty  that  I  am  anticipating 
much  in  my  little  volume,  can  I  refrain  from 
quoting  some  words  which  were  not  present  with 
me  during  its  composition,  although  I  must  have 
been  familiar  with  them  long  ago  ;  words  which 
express  excellently  well  why  it  is  that  these 
studies  profit  so  much,  and  which  will  also  ex- 
plain the  motives  which  induced  me  to  add  my 
little  contribution  to  their  furtherance  : 

'  A  language  will  often  be  wiser,  not  merely 
than  the  vulgar,  but  even  than  the  wisest  of  those 
who  speak  it.  Being  like  amber  in  its  efficacy 
to  circulate  the  electric  spirit  of  truth,  it  is  also 
like  amber  in  embalming  and  preserving  the 
relics  of  ancient  wisdom,  although  one  is  not 
seldom  puzzled  to  decipher  its  contents.  Some- 
times it  locks  up  truths,  which  were  once  well 
known,  but  which,  in   the  course  of  ages,  have 

a 


x  Preface. 

passed  out  of  sight  and  been  forgotten.  In  other 
cases  it  holds  the  germs  of  truths,  of  which, 
though  they  were  never  plainly  discerned,  the 
genius  of  its  framers  caught  a  glimpse  in  a 
happy  moment  of  divination.  A  meditative 
man  cannot  refrain  from  wonder,  when  he  digs 
down  to  the  deep  thought  lying  at  the  root  of 
many  a  metaphorical  term,  employed  for  the 
designation  of  spiritual  things,  even  of  those 
with  regard  to  which  professing  philosophers 
have  blundered  grossly  ;  and  often  it  would 
seem  as  though  rays  of  truth,  which  were  still 
below  the  intellectual  horizon,  had  dawned  upon 
the  imagination  as  it  was  looking  up  to  heaven. 
Hence  they  who  feel  an  inward  call  to  teach 
and  enlighten  their  countrymen,  should  deem  it 
an  important  part  of  their  duty  to  draw  out  the 
stores  of  thought  which  are  already  latent  in 
their  native  language,  to  purify  it  from  the  cor- 
ruptions which  Time  brings  upon  all  things,  and 
from  which  language  has  no  exemption,  and  to 
endeavour  to  give  distinctness  and  precision  to 
whatever  in  it  is  confused,  or  obscure,  or  dimly 
seen.' — Guesses  at  Truth,  First  Series,  p.  295. 

Itchenstoke  :   Oct.  9,  1851. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   L 

FAGS 

Introductory  Lecture  •       •  i 

LECTURE   II. 
On  the  Poetry  in  Words 46 

LECTURE   III. 
On  the  Morality  in  Words      .       .       .       .73 

LECTURE   IV. 
On  the  History  in  Words 124 

LECTURE  V. 
On  the  Rise  of  New  Words     ....  184 

LECTURE  VI. 
On  the  Distinction  of  Words  .       .  248 

LECTURE  VII. 
The  Schoolmaster's  Use  of  Words.       .       .  295 

Index  of  Words  .  339 


ON 

THE     STUDY    OF    WORDS 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

THERE  are  few  who  would  not  readily  ac- 
knowledge that  mainly  in  worthy  books 
are  preserved  and  hoarded  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  which  the  world  has 
accumulated  ;  and  that  chiefly  by  aid  of  books 
they  are  handed  down  from  one  generation  to 
another.  I  shall  urge  on  you  in  these  lectures 
something  different  from  this  ;  namely,  that  not 
in  books  only,  which  all  acknowledge,  nor  yet 
in  connected  oral  discourse,  but  often  also  in 
words  contemplated  singly,  there  are  boundless 
stores  of  moral  and  historic  truth,  and  no  less 
of  passion  and  imagination,  laid  up — that  from 
these,  lessons  of  infinite  worth  may  be  derived, 
if  only  our  attention  is  roused  to  their  existence. 
1  shall  urge  on  you  how  well  it  will  repay  you 
to  study  the  words  which  you  are  in  the  habit 
of  using  or  of  meeting,  be  they  such  as  relate 
to  highest  spiritual  things,  or  our  common  words 

b 


2  Int7'odnctory  Lecture.  lect. 

of  the  shop  and  the  market,  and  of  all  the 
familiar  intercourse  of  daily  life.  It  will  indeed 
repay  you  far  better  than  you  can  easily  believe. 
I  am  sure,  at  least,  that  for  many  a  young  man 
his  first  discovery  of  the  fact  that  words  are 
living  powers,  are  the  vesture,  yea,  even  the 
body,  which  thoughts  weave  for  themselves,  has 
been  like  the  dropping  of  scales  from  his  eyes, 
like  the  acquiring  of  another  sense,  or  the  intro- 
duction into  a  new  world  ;  he  is  never  able  to 
cease  wondering  at  the  moral  marvels  that 
surround  him  on  every  side,  and  ever  reveal 
themselves  more  and  more  to  his  gaze. 

We  indeed  hear  it  not  seldom  said  that  igno- 
rance is  the  mother  of  admiration.  No  falser 
word  was  ever  spoken,  and  hardly  a  more  mis- 
chievous one  ;  implying,  as  it  does,  that  this 
healthiest  exercise  of  the  mind  rests,  for  the 
most  part,  on  a  deceit  and  a  delusion,  and  that 
with  larger  knowledge  it  would  cease  ;  while, 
in  truth,  for  once  that  ignorance  leads  us  to  ad- 
mire that  which  with  fuller  insight  we  should 
perceive  to  be  a  common  thing,  one  demanding 
no  such  tribute  from  us,  a  hundred,  nay,  a  thou- 
sand times,  it  prevents  us  from  admiring  that 
which  is  admirable  indeed.  And  this  is  so, 
whether  we  are  moving  in  the  region  of  nature, 
which  is  the  region  of  God's  wonders,  or  in  the 
region  of  art,  which  is  the  region  of  man's 
wonders  ;  and  nowhere  truer  than  in  this  sphere 
and  region  of  language,  which  is  about  to  claim 
us  now.     Oftentimes  here  we  walk  up  and  down 


i.  Shidy  of  Words  not  Tedious.  3 

in  the  midst  of  intellectual  and  moral  marvels 
with  a  vacant  eye  and  a  careless  mind  ;  even  as 
some  traveller  passes  unmoved  over  fields  of 
fame,  or  through  cities  of  ancient  renown — un- 
moved, because  utterly  unconscious  of  the  lofty 
deeds  which  there  have  been  wrought,  of  the 
great  hearts  which  spent  themselves  there.  We, 
like  him,  wanting  the  knowledge  and  insight 
which  would  have  served  to  kindle  admiration 
in  us,  are  oftentimes  deprived  of  this  pure  and 
elevating  excitement  of  the  mind,  and  miss  no 
less  that  manifold  instruction  which  ever  lies 
about  our  path,  and  nowhere  more  largely  than 
in  our  daily  words,  if  only  we  knew  how  to  put 
forth  our  hands  and  make  it  our  own.  '  What 
riches,'  one  exclaims,  '  lie  hidden  in  the  vulgar 
tongue  of  our  poorest  and  most  ignorant.  What 
flowers  of  paradise  lie  under  our  feet,  with  their 
beauties  and  their  parts  undistinguished  and  un- 
discerned,  from  having  been  daily  trodden  on.' 

And  this  subject  upon  which  we  are  thus 
entering  ought  not  to  be  a  dull  or  uninteresting 
one  in  the  handling,  or  one  to  which  only  by  an 
effort  you  will  yield  the  attention  which  I  shall 
claim.  If  it  shall  prove  so,  this  I  fear  must  be 
through  the  fault  of  my  manner  of  treating  it ; 
for  certainly  in  itself  there  is  no  study  which 
may  be  made  at  once  more  instructive  and  en- 
tertaining than  the  study  of  the  use  and  abuse, 
the  origin  and  distinction  of  words,  with  an 
investigation,  slight  though  it  may  be,  of  the 
treasures  contained  in  them  ;  which  is  exactly 

B2 


Introductory  Lecture. 


LBCT. 


that  which  I  now  propose  to  myself  and  to  you. 
I  remember  a  very  learned  scholar,  to  whom 
we  owe  one  of  our  best  Greek  lexicons,  a  book 
which  must  have  cost  him  years,  speaking  in 
the  preface  of  his  completed  work  with  a  just 
disdain  of  some,  who  complained  of  the  irksome 
drudgery  of  such  toils  as  those  which  had  en- 
gaged him  so  long, — toils  irksome,  forsooth, 
because  they  only  had  to  do  with  words.  He 
disclaims  any  part  with  those  who  asked  pity  for 
themselves,  as  so  many  galley-slaves  chained  to 
the  oar,  or  martyrs  who  had  offered  themselves 
for  the  good  of  the  literary  world.  He  declares 
that  the  task  of  classing,  sorting,  grouping, 
comparing,  tracing  the  derivation  and  usage  of 
words,  had  been  to  him  no  drudgery,  but  a 
delight  and  labour  of  love.* 

And  if  this  may  be  true  in  regard  of  a  foreign 
tongue,  how  much  truer  ought  it  to  be  in  regard 
of  our  own,  of  our  '  mother  tongue,'  as  we  affec- 
tionately call  it.  A  great  writer  not  very  long 
departed  from  us  has  borne  witness  at  once  to 
the  pleasantness  and  profit  of  this  study.  '  In  a 
language,'  he  says,  '  like  ours,  where  so  many 
words  are  derived  from  other  languages,  there 
are  few  modes  of  instruction  more  useful  or 
more  amusing  than  that  of  accustoming  young 
people  to  seek  for  the  etymology  or  primary 

*  It  is  well  worth  the  while  to  read  on  this  same 
subject  the  pleasant  causerie  of  Littre", '  Comment  j'ai  fait 
mon  Dictionnaire.'  It  is  to  be  found  pp.  390  442  of  his 
Glanures. 


t  Language,  Fossil  Poetry.  5 

meaning  of  the  words  they  use.  There  are 
cases  in  which  more  knowledge  of  more  value 
may  be  conveyed  by  the  history  of  a  word  than 
by  the  history  of  a  campaign.'  So  writes 
Coleridge ;  and  impressing  the  same  truth, 
Emerson  has  somewhere  characterized  language 
as  'fossil  poetry.'  He  evidently  means  that  just 
as  in  some  fossil,  curious  and  beautiful  shapes 
of  vegetable  or  animal  life,  the  graceful  fern  or 
the  finely  vertebrated  lizard,  such  as  now,  it  may 
be,  have  been  extinct  for  thousands  of  years,  are 
permanently  bound  up  with  the  stone,  and  res- 
cued from  that  perishing  which  would  else  have 
been  their  portion, — so  in  words  are  beautiful 
thoughts  and  images,  the  imagination  and  the 
feeling  of  past  ages,  of  men  long  since  in  their 
graves,  of  men  whose  very  names  have  perished, 
there  are  these,  which  might  so  easily  have 
perished  too,  preserved  and  made  safe  for  ever. 
The  phrase  is  a  striking  one  ;  the  only  fault  one 
can  find  with  it  is  that  it  is  too  narrow.  Lan- 
guage may  be,  and  indeed  is,  this  'fossil  poetry'; 
but  it  may  be  affirmed  of  it  with  exactly  the 
same  truth  that  it  is  fossil  ethics,  or  fossil  history. 
Words  quite  as  often  and  as  effectually  embody 
facts  of  history,  or  convictions  of  the  moral 
sense,  as  of  the  imagination  or  passion  of  men ; 
even  as,  so  far  as  that  moral  sense  may  be  per- 
verted, they  will  bear  witness  and  keep  a  record 
of  that  perversion.  On  all  these  points  I  shall 
enter  at  full  in  after  lectures  ;  but  I  may  give 
by  anticipation  a  specimen  or  two  of  what  I 


Introductory  Lecture. 


LKCT. 


mean,  to  make  from  the  first  my  purpose  and 
plan  more  fully  intelligible  to  all. 

Language  then  is  '  fossil  poetry  * ;  in  other 
words,  we  are  not  to  look  for  the  poetry  which  a 
people  may  possess    only  in  its    poems,  or  its 
poetical  customs,  traditions,  and  beliefs.     Many 
a  single  word  also  is  itself  a  concentrated  poem, 
having  stores  of  poetical  thought  and  imagery 
laid  up  in  it.     Examine  it,  and  it  will  be  found 
to  rest  on  some  deep  analogy  of  things  natural 
and  things  spiritual  ;  bringing  those  to  illustrate 
and  to  give  an  abiding  form  and  body  to  these. 
The  image  may  have  grown  trite  and  ordinary 
now:  perhaps  through  the  help  of  this  very  word 
may  have  become  so  entirely  the  heritage  of  all, 
as  to  seem  little  better  than  a  commonplace  ;  yet 
not  the  less  he  who  first  discerned  the  relation, 
and  devised  the  new  word  which  should  express 
it,  or  gave  to  an  old,  never  before  but  literally 
used,  this  new  and    figurative  sense,  this  man 
was  in  his  degree  a  poet — a  maker,  that  is,  of 
things  which  were  not  before,  which  would  not 
have  existed  but  for  him,  or  for  some  other  gifted 
with  equal  powers.     He  who    spake  first  of  a 
'  dilapidated '  fortune,  what  an  image  must  have 
risen  up  before  his  mind's  eye  of  some  falling 
house  or  palace,  stone  detaching  itself  from  stone, 
till  all  had  gradually  sunk  into  desolation  and 
ruin.     Or  he  who  to  that    Greek  word  which 
signifies  '  that  which  will  endure  to  be  held  up 
to  and  judged   by  the   sunlight,'  gave  first  its 
ethical  signification  of  '  sincere,'  '  truthful,'  or  as 


u         Bishop  Butlers  Use  of  Pastime.        7 

we  sometimes  say,  'transparent,'  can  we  deny 
to  him  the  poet's  feeling  and  eye?  Many 
a  man  had  gazed,  we  are  sure,  at  the  jagged 
and  indented  mountain  ridges  of  Spain,  be- 
fore one  called  them  '  sierras '  or  '  saws,'  the 
name  by  which  now  they  are  known,  as  Sierra 
Morena,  Sierra  Nevada  ;  but  that  man  coined 
his  imagination  into  a  word  which  will  en- 
dure as  long  as  the  everlasting  hills  which  he 
named. 

But  it  was  said  just  now  that  words  often 
contain  a  witness  for  great  moral  truths— God 
having  pressed  such  a  seal  of  truth  upon  lan- 
guage, that  men  are  continually  uttering  deeper 
things  than  they  know,  asserting  mighty  prin- 
ciples, it  may  be  asserting  them  against  them- 
selves, in  words  that  to  them  may  seem  nothing 
more  than  the  current  coin  of  society.  Thus 
to  what  grand  moral  purposes  Bishop  Butler 
turns  the  word  '  pastime  ' ;  how  solemn  the  tes- 
timony which  he  compels  the  world,  out  of  its 
own  use  of  this  word,  to  render  against  itself — 
obliging  it  to  own  that  its  amusements  and 
pleasures  do  not  really  satisfy  the  mind  and  fill 
it  with  the  sense  of  an  abiding  and  satisfying 
joy  :  *  they  are  only  '  pastime  '  ;  they  serve  only, 


*  Sermon  xiv.  Upon  the  Love  of  God.  Curiously 
enough,  Montaigne  has,  in  his  Essays,  drawn  the  same 
testimony  out  of  the  word  :  '  This  ordinary  phrase  of 
Pass-time,  and  passing  away  the  time,  represents  the 
custom  of  those  wise  sort  of  people,  who  think  they  can- 
not have  a  better  account  of  their  lives,  than  to  let  them 


8  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

as  this  word  confesses,  to  pass  away  the  time,  to 
prevent  it  from  hanging,  an  intolerable  burden, 
on  men's  hands  :  all  which  they  can  do  at  the 
best  is  to  prevent  men  from  discovering  and 
attending  to  their  own  internal  poverty  and  dis- 
satisfaction and  want  He  might  have  added 
that  there  is  the  same  acknowledgment  in  the 
word '  diversion,'  which  means  no  more  than  that 
which  diverts  or  turns  us  aside  from  ourselves, 
and  in  this  way  helps  us  to  forget  ourselves  for 
a  little.  And  thus  it  would  appear  that,  even 
according  to  the  world's  own  confession,  all  which 
it  proposes  is — not  to  make  us  happy,  but  a  little 
to  prevent  us  from  remembering  that  we  are 
unhappy,  to  pass  away  our  time,  to  divert  us  from 
ourselves.  While  ofi  the  other  hand  we  declare 
that  the  good  which  will  really  fill  our  souls  and 
satisfy  them  to  the  uttermost,  is  not  in  us,  but 
without  us  and  above  us,  in  the  words  which  we 
use  to  set  forth  any  transcending  delight.  Take 
three  or  four  of  these  words — '  transport,'  '  rap- 
ture/ '  ravishment,'  '  ecstasy,' — '  transport,'  that 
which  carries  us,  as  '  rapture,'  or  '  ravishment,' 
that  which  snatdies  us  out  of  and  above  our- 


run  out  and  slide  away,  to  pass  them  over  and  to  baulk 
them,  and  as  much  as  they  can,  to  take  no  notice  of  them 
and  to  shun  them,  as  a  thing  of  troublesome  and  con- 
temptible quality.  But  I  know  it  to  be  another  kind  of 
thing,  and  find  it  both  valuable  and  commodious  even  in 
its  latest  decay,  wherein  I  now  enjoy  it,  and  nature  has 
delivered  it  into  our  hands  in  such  and  so  favourable  cir- 
cumstances that  we  commonly  complain  of  ourselves,  if 
it  be  troublesome  to  us  or  slide  unprofitably  away.' 


Morality  in  Words. 


selves  ;  and  '  ecstasy '  is  very  nearly  the  same, 
only  drawn  from  the  Greek. 

And  not  less,  where  a  perversion  of  the  moral 
sense  has  found  place,  words  preserve  oftentimes 
a  record  of  this  perversion.  We  have  a  signal 
example  of  this  in  the  use,  or  rather  misuse,  of 
the  words  '  religion  '  and  '  religious '  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  indeed  in  many  parts  of 
Christendom  still.  A  'religious'  person  did 
not  then  mean  any  one  who  felt  and  owned  the 
bonds  that  bound  him  to  God  and  to  his  fellow- 
men,  but  one  who  had  taken  peculiar  vows  upon 
him,  the  member  of  a  monastic  Order,  of  a  '  re- 
ligion '  as  it  was  called.  As  little  did  a  '  religious ' 
house  then  mean,  nor  does  it  now  mean  in  the 
Church  of  Rome,  a  Christian  household,  ordered 
in  the  fear  of  God,  but  a  house  in  which  these 
persons  were  gathered  together  according  to  the 
rule  of  some  man.  What  a  light  does  this  one 
word  so  used  throw  on  the  entire  state  of  mind 
and  habits  of  thought  in  those  ages  !  That  then 
was 'religion,' and  alone  deserved  the  name  !  And 
'  religious '  was  a  title  which  might  not  be  given 
to  parents  and  children,  husbands  and  wives,  men 
and  women  fulfilling  faithfully  and  holily  in  the 
world  the  duties  of  their  several  stations,  but 
only  to  those  who  had  devised  a  self-chosen 
service  for  themselves.* 


*  A  reviewer  in  Eraser's  Magazine,  Dec.  185 1,  doubts 
whether  I  have  not  here  pushed  my  assertion  too  far.  So 
far  from  this,  it  was  not  merely  the  '  popular  language ' 
which  this  corruption  had  invaded,  but  a  decree  of  the 


io  Introductory  Lecture.  lkct. 

But  language  is  fossil  history  as  well.  What 
a  record  of  great  social  revolutions,  revolutions 
in  nations  and  in  the  feelings  of  nations,  the  one 
word  '  frank  '  contains,  which  is  used,  as  we  all 
know,  to  express  aught  that  is  generous,  straight- 
forward, and  free.  The  Franks,  I  need  not  remind 
you,  were  a  powerful  German  tribe,  or  association 
of  tribes,  who  gave  themselves  *  this  proud  name 
of  the  '  franks  '  or  the  free  ;  and  who,  at  the 
breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  possessed 
themselves  of  Gaul,  to  which  they  gave  their 
own  name.  They  were  the  ruling  conquering 
people,  honourably  distinguished  from  the  Gauls 
and  degenerate  Romans  among  whom  they  esta- 
blished themselves  by  their  independence,  their 
love  of  freedom,  their  scorn  of  a  lie  ;  they  had, 
in  short,  the  virtues  which  belong  to  a  conquer- 
ing and  dominant  race  in  the  midst  of  an  inferior 
and  conquered  one.  And  thus  it  came  to  pass 
that  by  degrees  the  name  '  frank '  indicated  not 
merely  a  national,  but  involved  a  moral,  distinc- 


great  Fourth  Lateran  Council  (A.D.  121 5),  forbidding  the 
further  multiplication  of  monastic  Orders,  runs  thus  :  Ne 
nimia  religionum  diversitas  gravem  in  Ecclesia  Dei  con- 
fusionem  inducat,  firmiter  prohibemus,  ne  quis  de  cetero 
novam  religionem  inveniat,  sed  quicunque  voluerit  ad 
religionem  converti,  unam  de  approbatis  assumat. 

*  [This  explanation  of  the  name  Franks  is  now 
generally  given  up.  The  name  is  probably  a  derivative 
from  a  lost  O.H.G.  *francho,  a  spear  or  javelin  :  compare 
A.S.  franca,  I  eel.  frakka  ;  similarly  the  Saxons  are  sup- 
posed to  have  derived  their  name  from  a  weapon — seax, 
a  knife  ;  see  Kluge's  Diet.  (s.v.  frank)]. 


«•  Language  not  Invented.  1 1 

tion  as  well ;  and  a  '  frank '  man  was  synony- 
mous not  merely  with  a  man  of  the  conquering 
German  race,  but  was  an  epithet  applied  to  any 
man  possessed  of  certain  high  moral  qualities, 
which  for  the  most  part  appertained  to,  and  were 
found  only  in,  men  of  that  stock  ;  and  thus  in 
men's  daily  discourse,  when  they  speak  of  a 
person  as  being  '  frank,'  or  when  they  use  the 
words  '  franchise,'  'enfranchisement,'  to  express 
civil  liberties  and  immunities,  their  language  here 
is  the  outgrowth,  the  record,  and  the  result  of 
great  historic  changes,  bears  testimony  to  facts 
of  history,  whereof  it  may  well  happen  that  the 
speakers  have  never  heard.*  The  word  '  slave ' 
has  undergone  a  process  entirely  analogous, 
although  in  an  opposite  direction.  '  The  martial 
superiority  of  the  Teutonic  races  enabled  them 
to  keep  their  slave  markets  supplied  with  cap- 
tives taken  from  the  Sclavonic  tribes.  Hence, 
in  all  the  languages  of  Western  Europe,  the  once 
glorious  name  of  Slave  has  come  to  express  the 
most  degraded  condition  of  men.  What  cen- 
turies of  violence  and  warfare  does  the  history 
of  this  word  disclose.'  f 

*  '  Frank,'  though  thus  originally  a  German  word,  only 
came  back  to  Germany  from  France  in  the  seventeeth 
century.  With  us  it  is  found  in  the  sixteenth  ;  but  scarcely 
earlier. 

t  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  c  55.  [It  is  very 
doubtful  whether  the  idea  of  '  glory '  was  implied  origin- 
ally in  the  national  name  of  Slav.  It  is  generally  held 
now  that  the  Slavs  gave  themselves  the  name  as  being 
'  the  intelligible,'  or  •  the  intelligibly  speaking'  people  ;  as 


1 2  Introductory  Lecture. 


LKCT. 


Having  given  by  anticipation  this  handful  of 
examples  in  illustration  of  what  in  these  lectures 
I  propose,  I  will,  before  proceeding  further,  make 
a  few  observations  on  a  subject,  which,  if  we 
would  go  at  all  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  we  can 
scarcely  leave  altogether  untouched, — I  mean 
the  origin  of  language,  in  which  however  we  will 
not  entangle  ourselves  deeper  than  we  need. 
There  are,  or  rather  there  have  been,  two  theories 
about  this.  One,  and  that  which  rather  has 
been  than  now  is,  for  few  maintain  it  still,  would 
put  language  on  the  same  level  with  the  various 
arts  and  inventions  with  which  man  has  gradu- 
ally adorned  and  enriched  his  life.  It  would 
make  him  by  degrees  to  have  invented  it,  just 
as  he  might  have  invented  any  of  these,  for  him- 
self; and  from  rude  imperfect  beginnings,  the 
inarticulate  cries  by  which  he  expressed  his 
natural  wants,  the  sounds  by  which  he  sought  to 
imitate  the  impression  of  natural  objects  upon 
him,  little  by  little  to  have  arrived  at  that  won- 
drous organ  of  thought  and  feeling,  which  his 
language  is  often  to  him  now. 

in  the  case  of  many  other  races,  they  regarded  their 
strange-speaking  neighbours  as '  barbarian,'  that  is '  stam- 
mering,' or  even  as  '  dumb.'  So  the  Russians  call  their 
neighbours  the  Germans  njemets,  connected  with  njemo,'m- 
distinct.  The  old  name  Slovene,  Slavonians,  is  probably 
a  derivative  from  the  substantive  which  appears  in  Church 
Slavonic  in  the  form  slovo,  a  word  ;  see  Thomsen's 
Russia  and  Scandinavia,  p.  8.  Slovo  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  old  Slavonic  word  for  'fame' — slava, 
hence,  no  doubt,  the  explanation  of  Slave  favoured  by 
Gibbon.] 


«.    Language  in  what  Sense  God's  Gift.    13 

It  might,  I  think,  be  sufficient  to  object  to 
this  explanation,  that  language  would  then  be 
an  accident  of  human  nature  ;  and,  this  being  the 
case,  that  we  certainly  should  somewhere  en- 
counter tribes  sunken  so  low  as  not  to  possess 
it  ;  even  as  there  is  almost  no  human  art  or 
invention  so  obvious,  and  as  it  seems  to  us  so 
indispensable,  but  there  are  those  who  have 
fallen  below  its  knowledge  and  its  exercise.  But 
with  language  it  is  not  so.  There  have  never 
yet  been  found  human  beings,  not  the  most 
degraded  horde  of  South  African  bushmen,  or 
Papuan  cannibals,  who  did  not  employ  this 
means  of  intercourse  with  one  another.  But 
the  more  decisive  objection  to  this  view  of  the 
matter  is,  that  it  hangs  together  with,  and  is 
indeed  an  essential  part  of,  that  theory  of  society, 
which  is  contradicted  alike  by  every  page  of 
Genesis,  and  every  notice  of  our  actual  ex- 
perience— the  'urang-utang  theory,'  as  it  has 
been  so  happily  termed — that,  I  mean,  according 
to  which  the  primitive  condition  of  man  was  the 
savage  one,  and  the  savage  himself  the  seed  out 
of  which  in  due  time  the  civilized  man  was 
unfolded  ;  whereas,  in  fact,  so  far  from  being  this 
living  seed,  he  might  more  justly  be  considered 
as  a  dead  withered  leaf,  torn  violently  away 
from  the  great  trunk  of  humanity,  and  with  no 
more  power  to  produce  anything  nobler  than 
himself  out  of  himself,  than  that  dead  withered 
leaf  to  unfold  itself  into  the  oak  of  the  forest 


14  Introductory  Lecture.  ujct 

So  far  from  being  the  child  with  the  latent  capa- 
bilities of  manhood,  he  is  himself  rather  the  man 
prematurely  aged,  and  decrepit,  and  outworn 

But  the  truer  answer  to  the  inquiry  how  lan- 
guage arose,  is  this  :  God  gave  man  language, 
just  as  He  gave  him  reason,  and  just  because  He 
gave  him  reason  ;  for  what  is  man's  zvordbut  his 
reason,  coming  forth  that  it  may  behold  itself? 
They  are  indeed  so  essentially  one  and  the  same 
that  the  Greek  language  has  one  word  for  them 
both.  He  gave  it  to  him,  because  he  could  not 
be  man,  that  is,  a  social  being,  without  it.  Yet 
this  must  not  be  taken  to  affirm  that  man  started 
at  the  first  furnished  with  a  full-formed  vocabu- 
lary of  words,  and  as  it  were  with  his  first 
dictionary  and  first  grammar  ready-made  to  his 
hands.  He  did  not  thus  begin  the  world  with 
names,  but  with  the  power  of  naming :  for  man 
is  not  a  mere  speaking  machine  ;  God  did  not 
teach  him  words,  as  one  of  us  teaches  a  parrot, 
from  without ;  but  gave  him  a  capacity,  and 
then  evoked  the  capacity  which  He  gave.  Here, 
as  in  everything  else  that  concerns  the  primitive 
constitution,  the  great  original  institutes,  of  hu- 
manity, our  best  and  truest  lights  are  to  be 
gotten  from  the  study  of  the  first  three  chapters 
of  Genesis  ;  and  you  will  observe  that  there  it  is 
not  God  who  imposed  the  first  names  on  the 
creatures,  but  Adam — Adam,  however,  at  the 
direct  suggestion  of  his  Creator.  He  brought 
them  all,  we  are  told,  to  Adam,  '  to  see  what  he 


t  Langtiage  of  Savage  Tribes.  15 

would  call  them  ;  and  whatsoever  Adam  called 
every  living  creature,  that  was  the  name  thereof 
(Gen.  ii.  19).  Here  we  have  the  clearest  intima- 
tion of  the  origin,  at  once  divine  and  human,  of 
speech  ;  while  yet  neither  is  so  brought  forward 
as  to  exclude  or  obscure  the  other. 

And  so  far  we  may  concede  a  limited  amount 
of  right  to  those  who  have  held  a  progressive 
acquisition,  on  man's  part,  of  the  power  of  em- 
bodying thought  in  words.  I  believe  that  we 
should  conceive  the  actual  case  most  truly,  if  we 
conceived  this  power  of  naming  things  and  ex- 
pressing their  relations,  as  one  laid  up  in  the 
depths  of  man's  being,  one  of  the  divine  capa- 
bilities with  which  he  was  created  :  but  one  (and 
in  this  differing  from  those  which  have  produced 
in  various  people  various  arts  of  life)  which  could 
not  remain  dormant  in  him,  for  man  could  be 
only  man  through  its  exercise  ;  which  therefore 
did  rapidly  bud  and  blossom  out  from  within 
him  at  every  solicitation  from  the  world  without 
and  from  his  fellow-man  ;  as  each  object  to  be 
named  appeared  before  his  eyes,  each  relation  of 
things  to  one  another  arose  before  his  mind.  It 
was  not  merely  the  possible,  but  the  necessary, 
emanation  of  the  spirit  with  which  he  had  been 
endowed.  Man  makes  his  own  language,  but 
he  makes  it  as  the  bee  makes  its  cells,  as  the 
bird  its  nest ;  he  cannot  do  otherwise.* 


Renan  has  much  of  interest  on  this  matter,  both  in 


1 6  Introductory  Lecture. 


LKCT. 


HowW\\s>  latent  power  evolved  itself  first,  how 
this  spontaneous  generation  of  language  came  to 
pass,  is  a  mystery  ;  even  as  every  act  of  creation 
is  of  necessity  such  ;  and  as  a  mystery  all  the 
deepest  inquirers  into  the  subject  are  content  to 
leave  it.  Yet  we  may  perhaps  a  little  help  our- 
selves to  the  real  izing  of  what  the  process  was,  and 
what  it  was  not,  if  we  liken  it  to  the  growth  of  a 
tree  springing  out  of,  and  unfolding  itself  from, 
a  root,  and  according  to  a  necessary  law— that 


his  work  De  POrigine  du  Langage,  and  in  his  Hist,  des 
Langues  Sdmitiques.  I  quote  from  the  latter,  p.  445  : 
Sans  doute  les  langues,  comme  tout  ce  qui  est  organise", 
sont  sujettes  a  la  loi  du  developpement  graduel.  En 
soutenant  que  le  langage  primitif  posse"dait  les  elements 
necessaires  a  son  integrity,  nous  sommes  loin  de  dire  que 
les  mecanismes  d'un  age  plus  avance  y  fussent  arrives  a 
leur  pleine  existence.  Tout  y  etait,  mais  confusement  et 
sans  distinction.  Le  temps  seul  et  les  progr6s  de  l'esprit 
humain  pouvaient  operer  un  discernement  dans  cette 
obscure  synthese,  et  assigner  a  chaque  element  son  role 
special.  La  vie,  en  un  mot,  n'etait  ici,  comme  partout, 
qu'a  la  condition  de  devolution  du  germe  primitif,  de  la 
distribution  des  roles  et  de  la  separation  des  organes. 
Mais  ces  organes  eux-memes  furent  determines  des  le 
premier  jour,  et  depuis  1'acte  generateur  qui  le  fit  etre,  le 
langage  ne  s'est  enrichi  d'aucune  fonction  vraiment 
nouvelle.  Un  germe  est  pose,  renfermant  en  puissance 
tout  ce  que  l'etre  sera  un  jour ;  le  germe  se  developpe, 
les  formes  se  constituent  dans  leurs  proportions  regu- 
licres,  ce  qui  elait  en  puissance  devient  en  acte ;  mais 
rien  ne  se  cree,  rien  ne  s'ajoute  :  telle  est  la  loi  commune 
des  etres  soumis  aux  conditions  de  la  vie.  Telle  fut  aussi 
la  loi  du  langage. 


i.  Language  of  Savage  Tribes.  ij 

root  being  the  divine  capacity  of  language  with 
which  man  was  created,  that  law  being  the  law 
of  highest  reason  with  which  he  was  endowed  : 
if  we'  liken  it  to  this  rather  than  to  the  rearing 
of  a  house,  which  a  man  should  slowly  and 
painfully  fashion  for  himself  with  dead  timbers 
combined  after  his  own  fancy  and  caprice ;  and 
which  little  by  little  improved  in  shape,  material, 
and  size,  being  first  but  a  log  house,  answering 
his  barest  needs,  and  only  after  centuries  of  toil 
and  pain  growing  for  his  sons'  sons  into  a  stately 
palace  for  pleasure  and  delight. 

Were  it  otherwise,  were  the  savage  the  primi- 
tive man,  we  should  then  find  savage  tribes,  fur- 
nished scantily  enough,  it  might  be,  with  the 
elements  of  speech,  yet  at  the  same  time  with  its 
fruitful  beginnings,  its  vigorous  and  healthful 
germs.  But  what  does  their  language  on  close 
inspection  prove  ?  In  every  case  what  they  are 
themselves,  the  remnant  and  ruin  of  a  better  and  a 
nobler  past.  Fearful  indeed  is  the  impress  of  de- 
gradation which  is  stamped  on  the  language  of 
the  savage,  more  fearful  perhaps  even  than  that 
which  is  stamped  upon  his  form.  When  wholly 
letting  go  the  truth,  when  long  and  greatly  sin- 
ning against  light  and  conscience,  a  people  has 
thus  gone  the  downward  way,  has  been  scattered 
off  by  some  violent  catastrophe  from  those  re- 
gions of  the  world  which  are  the  seats  of  ad- 
vance and  progress,  and  driven  to  its  remote, 
isles   and  further  corners,  then   as  one  nobler 

C 


1 8  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

thought,  one  spiritual  idea  after  another  has 
perished  from  it,  the  words  also  that  expressed 
these  have  perished  too.  As  one  habit  of  civi- 
lization has  been  let  go  after  another,  the  words 
which  those  habits  demanded  have  dropped  as 
well,  first  out  of  use,  and  then  out  of  memory 
and  thus  after  a  while  have  been  wholly  lost. 

Moffat,  in  his  Missionary  Labours  and  Scenes 
in  South  Africa,  gives  us  a  very  remarkable  ex- 
ample of  the  disappearing  of  one  of  the  most 
significant  words  from  the  language  of  a  tribe 
sinking  ever  deeper  in  savagery ;  and  with  the 
disappearing  of  the  word,  of  course,  the  dis- 
appearing as  well  of  the  great  spiritual  fact  and 
truth  whereof  that  word  was  at  once  the  vehicle 
and  the  guardian.  The  Bechuanas,  a  Caffre  tribe, 
employed  formerly  the  word  '  Morimo,'  to  desig- 
nate '  Him  that  is  above,'  or  '  Him  that  is  in 
heaven,'  and  attached  to  the  word  the  notion  of 
a  supreme  Divine  Being.  This  word,  with  the 
spiritual  idea  corresponding  to  it,  Moffat  found 
to  have  vanished  from  the  language  of  the  pre- 
sent generation,  although  here  and  there  he 
could  meet  with  an  old  man,  scarcely  one  or  two 
in  a  thousand,  who  remembered  in  his  youth  to 
have  heard  speak  of  '  Morimo ' ;  and  this  word, 
once  so  deeply  significant,  only  survived  now  in 
the  spells  and  charms  of  the  so-called  rain- 
makers and  sorcerers,  who  misused  it  to  desig- 
nate a  fabulous  ghost,  of  whom  they  told  the 
absurdest  and  most  contradictory  things. 


t.  Poverty  of  Languages.  19 

And  as  there  is  no  such  witness  to  the  degra- 
dation of  the  savage  as  the  brutal  poverty  of  his 
language,  so  is  there  nothing  that  so  effectually 
tends  to  keep  him  in  the  depths  to  which  he  has 
fallen.  You  cannot  impart  to  any  man  more 
than  the  words  which  he  understands  either  now 
contain,  or  can  be  made,  intelligibly  to  him,  to 
contain.  Language  is  as  truly  on  one  side  the 
limit  and  restraint  of  thought,  as  on  the  other 
side  that  which  feeds  and  unfolds  thought.  Thus 
it  is  the  ever-repeated  complaint  of  the  mission- 
ary that  the  very  terms  are  well-nigh  or  wholly 
wanting  in  the  dialect  of  the  savage  whereby  to 
impart  to  him  heavenly  truths  ;  and  not  these 
only ;  but  that  there  are  equally  wanting  those 
which  should  express  the  nobler  emotions  of  the 
human  heart.  Dobrizhoffcr,  the  Jesuit  mission- 
ary, in  his  curious  History  of  the  Abipones,  tells 
us  that  neither  these  nor  the  Guarinies,  two  of 
the  principal  native  tribes  of  Brazil,  possessed 
any  word  in  the  least  corresponding  to  our 
'thanks.'  But  what  wonder,  if  the  feeling  of 
gratitude  was  entirely  absent  from  their  hearts, 
that  they  should  not  have  possessed  the  corre- 
sponding word  in  their  vocabularies  ?  Nay,  how 
should  they  have  had  it  there  ?  And  that  in  this 
absence  lies  the  true  explanation  is  plain  from  a 
fact  which  the  same  writer  records,  that,  although 
inveterate  askers,  they  never  showed  the  slightest 
sense  of  obligation  or  of  gratitude  when  they 

obtained  what  they  sought ;  never  saying  more 

c  2 


Introductory  Lecture. 


than,  '  This  will  be  useful  to  me,'  or,  '  This  is 
what  I  wanted.'  Dr.  Krapf,  after  laborious  re- 
searches in  some  widely  extended  dialects  of 
East  Africa,  has  remarked  in  them  the  same 
absence  of  any  words  expressing  the  idea  of 
gratitude. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  what  they  have  forfeited 
and  lost,  but  also  in  what  they  have  retained  or 
invented,  that  these  languages  proclaim  their 
degradation  and  debasement,  and  how  deeply 
they  and  those  that  speak  them  have  fallen. 
For  indeed  the  strange  wealth  and  the  strange 
poverty,  I  know  not  which  the  strangest  and  the 
saddest,  of  the  languages  of  savage  tribes,  rich  in 
words  which  proclaim  their  shame,  poor  in  those 
which  should  attest  the  workings  of  any  nobler 
life  among  them,  not  seldom  absolutely  destitute 
of  these  last,  are  a  mournful  and  ever-recurring 
surprise,  even  to  those  who  were  more  or  less 
prepared  to  expect  nothing  else.  Thus  I  have 
read  of  a  tribe  in  New  Holland,  which  has  no 
word  to  signify  God,  but  has  one  to  designate  a 
process  by  which  an  unborn  child  may  be  de- 
stroyed in  the  bosom  of  its  mother.*     And  I 

*  A  Wesleyan  missionary,  communicating  with  me 
from  Fiji,  assures  me  I  have  here  understated  the  case. 
He  says  :  '  I  could  write  down  several  words,  which  ex- 
press as  many  different  ways  of  killing  an  unborn  child.1 
He  has  at  the  same  time  done  me  the  favour  to  send  me 
dreadful  confirmation  of  all  which  I  have  here  asserted. 
It  is  a  list  of  some  Fiji  words,  with  the  hideous  meanings 
which  they  bear,  or  facts  which  they  imply.  He  has 
naturally  confined  himself  to  those  ill  one  domain  of 


Fiji  Vocabulary.  21 


have  been  informed,  on  the  authority  of  one  ex- 
cellently capable  of  knowing,  an  English  scholar 
long  resident  in  Van  Diemen's  Land,  that  in  the 
native  language  of  that  island  there  are*  four 
words  to  express  the  taking  of  human  life — one 
to  express  a  father's  killing  of  a  son,  another  a 
son's  killing  of  a  father,  with  other  varieties  of 
murder  ;  and  that  in  no  one  of  these  lies  the 
slightest  moral  reprobation,  or  sense  of  the  deep- 
lyingdistinction  between  to'  kill '  and  to '  murder ' ; 
while  at  the  same  time,  of  that  language  so  richly 

human  wickedness — that,  namely,  of  cruelty  ;  leaving 
another  domain,  which  borders  close  on  this,  and  which, 
he  assures  me,  would  yield  proofs  quite  as  terrible,  alto- 
gether untouched.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  record 
more  hideous  of  what  the  works  of  the  arch-murderer  are, 
or  one  more  fitted  to  stir  up  missionary  zeal  in  behalf  of 
those  dark  places  of  the  earth  which  are  full  of  the  habi- 
tations of  cruelty.  A  very  few  specimens  must  suffice. 
The  language  of  Fiji  has  a  word  for  a  club  which  has 
killed  a  man  ;  for  a  dead  body  which  is  to  be  eaten  ;  for 
the  first  of  such  bodies  brought  in  at  the  beginning  of  a 
war  ;  for  the  flesh  on  each  side  of  the  backbone.  It  has 
a  name  of  honour  given  to  those  who  have  taken  life ;  it 
need  not  have  been  the  life  of  an  enemy  ;  if  only  they 
have  shed  blood — it  may  have  been  the  life  of  a  woman 
or  a  child — the  title  has  been  earned.  It  has  a  hideous 
word  to  express  the  torturing  and  insulting  of  an  enemy,  as 
by  cutting  off  any  part  of  his  body — his  nose  or  tongue, 
for  instance — cooking  and  eating  it  before  his  face,  and 
taunting  him  the  while  ;  the  dKpu3Tr)pui(etp  of  the  Greeks, 
with  the  cannibalism  added.     But  of  this  enough. 

*  [This  was  written  in  1851.  Now,  in  1893,  Van 
Diemen's  Land  is  called  Tasmania,  and  the  native  lan- 
guage of  that  island  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  New  Holland 
was  the  old  name  for  Australia.] 


1  f 


Introductory  Lecture. 


and  so  fearfully  provided  with  expressions  for 
this  extreme  utterance  of  hate,  he  also  reports 
that  a  word  for  '  love  '  is  wanting  in  it  altogether. 
Yet  with  all  this,  ever  and  anon  in  the  midst  of 
this  wreck  and  ruin,  there  is  that  in  the  language 
of  the  savage,  some  subtle  distinction,  some  curi- 
ous allusion  to  a  perished  civilization,  now  utterly 
unintelligible  to  the  speaker  ;  or  some  other  note, 
which  proclaims  his  language  to  be  the  remains 
of  a  dissipated  inheritance,  the  rags  and  remnants 
of  a  robe  which  was  a  royal  one  once.  The 
fragments  of  a  broken  sceptre  are  in  his  hand,  a 
sceptre  wherewith  once  he  held  dominion  (he, 
that  is,  in  his  progenitors)  over  large  kingdoms 
of  thought,  which  now  have  escaped  wholly  from 
his  sway.* 

But  while  it  is  thus  with  him,  while  this  is  the 
downward  course  of  all  those  that  have  chosen 
the  downward  path,  while  with  every  impoverish- 
ing and  debasing  of  personal  and  national  life 
there  goes  hand  in  hand  a  corresponding  im- 


*  See  Tylor,  Early  History  of  'Mankind,  pp.  150-190; 
and  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  On  Primeval  Man  ;  and  on  this 
same  survival  of  the  fragments  of  an  elder  civilization, 
Ebrard,  Apologetik,  vol.  ii.  p.  3S2.  Among  some  of  the 
Papuans  the  faintest  rudiments  of  the  family  survive ;  of 
the  tribe  no  trace  whatever  ;  while  yet  of  these  one  has 
lately  written: — 'Sie  haben  religiose  Gebrauche  und 
Uebungen,  welche,  mit  einigen  anderen  Erscheinungen 
in  ihrem  Leben,  mit  ihrem  jetzigen  Culturzustande  ganz 
unvereinbar  erscheinen,  wenn  man  darin  nicht  die  Spuren 
einer  friiher  hohern  Bildung  erkennen  will.' 


Words  the  Guardians  of  Thoughts.    23 


poverishment  and  debasement  of  language  ;  so 
on  the  contrary,  where  there  is  advance  and 
progress,  where  a  divine  idea  is  in  any  measure 
realizing  itself  in  a  people,  where  they  are  learn- 
ing more  accurately  to  define  and  distinguish, 
more  truly  to  know,  where  they  are  ruling,  as 
men  ought  to  rule,  over  nature,  and  compelling 
her  to  give  up  her  secrets  to  them,  where  new 
thoughts  are  rising  up  over  the  horizon  of  a 
nation's  mind,  new  feelings  are  stirring  at  a 
nation's  heart,  new  facts  coming  within  the 
sphere  of  its  knowledge,  there  will  language 
be  growing  and  advancing  too.  It  cannot  lag 
behind  ;  for  man  feels  that  nothing  is  properly 
his  own,  that  he  has  not  secured  any  new  thought, 
or  entered  upon  any  new  spiritual  inheritance, 
till  he  has  fixed  it  in  language,  till  he  can  con- 
template it,  not  as  himself,  but  as  his  word  ;  he 
is  conscious  that  he  must  express  truth,  if  he  is 
to  preserve  it,  and  still  more  if  he  would  propa- 
gate it  among  others.  '  Names,'  as  it  has  been 
excellently  said,  '  are  impressions  of  sense,  and 
as  such  take  the  strongest  hold  upon  the  mind, 
and  of  all  other  impressions  can  be  most  easily 
recalled  and  retained  in  view.  They  therefore 
serve  to  give  a  point  of  attachment  to  all  the 
more  volatile  objects  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Impressions  that  when  past  might  be  dissipated 
for  ever,  are  by  their  connexion  with  language 
always  within  reach.  Thoughts,  of  themselves 
are    perpetually   slipping   out    of    the   field  of 


24  Introductory  Lecture.  uct. 

immediate  mental  vision  ;  but  the  name  abides 
with  us,  and  the  utterance  of  it  restores  them  in 
a  moment' 

Men  sometimes  complain  of  the  number  of 
new  theological  terms  which  the  great  contro- 
versies in  which  the  Church  from  time  to  time 
has  been  engaged,  have  left  behind  them.  But 
this  could  not  have  been  otherwise,  unless  the 
gains  through  those  controversies  made,  were 
presently  to  be  lost  again  ;  for  as  has  lately 
been  well  said :  '  The  success  and  enduring 
influence  of  any  systematic  construction  of 
truth,  be  it  secular  or  sacred,  depends  as  much 
upon  an  exact  terminology,  as  upon  close  and 
deep  thinking  itself.  Indeed,  unless  the  results 
to  which  the  human  mind  arrives  are  plainly 
stated,  and  firmly  fixed  in  an  exact  phraseology, 
its  thinking  is  to  very  little  purpose  in  the  end. 
"  Terms,"  says  Whewell,  "  record  discoveries." 
That  which  was  seen,  it  may  be  with  crystal 
clearness,  and  in  bold  outline,  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  individual  thinker,  may  fail  to  become 
the  property  and  possession  of  mankind  at  large, 
because  it  is  not  transferred  from  the  individual 
to  the  general  mind,  by  means  of  a  precise 
phraseology  and  a  rigorous  terminology.  No- 
thing is  in  its  own  nature  more  fugacious  and 
shifting  than  thought ;  and  particularly  thoughts 
upon  the  mysteries  of  Christianity.  A  concep- 
tion that  is  plain  and  accurate  in  the  under- 
standing of  the  first  man  becomes  obscure  and 


*■      Words  the  Gtiardians  of  Thoughts.    25 

false  in  that  of  the  second,  because  it  was  not 
grasped  and  firmly  held  in  the  form  and  pro- 
portions with  which  it  first  came  up,  and  then 
handed  over  to  other  minds,  a  fixed  and  scientific 
quantity.'*  And  on  the  necessity  of  names  at 
once  for  the  preservation  and  the  propagation  of 
truth  it  has  been  justly  observed  :  '  Hardly  any 
original  thoughts  on  mental  or  social  subjects 
ever  make  their  way  among  mankind,  or  assume 
their  proper  importance  in  the  minds  even  of 
their  inventors,  until  aptly  selected  words  or 
phrases  have  as  it  were  nailed  them  down  and 
held  them  fast'  f  And  this  holds  good  alike  of 
the  false  and  of  the  true.  I  think  we  may  ob- 
serve very  often  the  way  in  which  controversies, 
after  long  eddying  backward  and  forward,  hither 
and  thither,  concentrate  themselves  at  last  in 
some  single  word  which  is  felt  to  contain  all  that 
the  one  party  would  affirm  and  the  other  would 
deny.  After  a  desultory  swaying  of  the  battle 
hither  and  thither  '  the  high  places  of  the  field,' 
the  critical  position,  on  the  winning  of  which 
everything  turns,  is  discovered  at  last.  Thus 
the  whole  controversy  of  the  Catholic  Church 
with  the  Arians  finally  gathers  itself  up  in  a 
single  word,  '  homoousion  ; '  that  with  the  Nes- 
torians  in  another,  '  theotokos.'     One  might  be 


*  Shedd,  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  i.  p.  362  5 
compare  Guesses  at  Truth,  1866,  p.  217;  and  Gerber, 
Sprache  als  Kunst,  vol  i.  p.  145. 

f  Mill,  System  of  Logic,  vol.  ii.  p.  291. 


26  Introductory  Lecture,  lect. 

bold  to  affirm  that  the  entire  secret  of  Buddhism 
is  found  in  '  Nirvana '  ;  for  take  away  the  word, 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  keystone 
to  the  whole  arch  is  gone.  So  too  when  the 
medieval  Church  allowed  and  then  adopted  the 
word  '  transubstantiation '  (and  we  know  the 
exact  date  of  this),  it  committed  itself  to  a 
doctrine  from  which  henceforward  it  was  im- 
possible to  recede.  The  floating  error  had  be- 
come a  fixed  one,  and  exercised  a  far  mightier 
influence  on  the  minds  of  all  who  received  it, 
than  except  for  this  it  would  have  ever  done. 
It  is  sometimes  not  a  word,  but  a  phrase,  which 
proves  thus  mighty  in  operation.  '  Reformation 
in  the  head  and  in  the  members '  was  the  watch- 
word, for  more  than  a  century  before  an  actual 
Reformation  came,  of  all  who  were  conscious 
of  the  deeper  needs  of  the  Church.  What  in- 
telligent acquaintance  with  Darwin's  speculations 
would  the  world  in  general  have  made,  except 
for  two  or  three  happy  and  comprehensive 
terms,  as '  the  survival  of  the  fittest,' '  the  struggle 
for  existence,'  '  the  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion '  ?  Multitudes  who  else  would  have  known 
nothing  about  Comte's  system,  know  something 
about  it  when  they  know  that  he  called  it  '  the 
positive  philosophy.' 

We  have  been  tempted  to  depart  a  little, 
though  a  very  little,  from  the  subject  imme- 
diately before  us.  What  was  just  now  said  of 
the  manner  in  which  language  enriches  itself 


i-  Birth  of  Language.  27 

does  not  contradict  a  prior  assertion,  that  man 
starts  with  language  as  God's  perfect  gift,  which 
he  only  impairs  and  forfeits  by  sloth  and  sin, 
according  to  the  same  law  which  holds  good  in 
respect  of  each  other  of  the  gifts  of  heaven. 
For  it  was  not  meant,  as  indeed  was  then  ob- 
served, that  men  would  possess  words  to  set 
forth  feelings  which  were  not  yet  stirring  in 
them,  combinations  which  they  had  not  yet 
made,  objects  which  they  had  not  yet  seen,  rela- 
tions of  which  they  were  not  yet  conscious  ;  but 
that  up  to  man's  needs,  (those  needs  including 
not  merely  his  animal  wants,  but  all  his  higher 
spiritual  cravings,)  he  would  find  utterance  freely. 
The  great  logical,  or  grammatical,  framework  of 
language,  (for  grammar  is  the  logic  of  speech, 
even  as  logic  is  the  grammar  of  reason,)  he  would 
possess,  he  knew  not  how  ;  and  certainly  not  as 
the  final  result  of  gradual  acquisitions,  and  of 
reflexion  setting  these  in  order,  and  drawing 
general  rules  from  them  ;  but  as  that  rather 
which  alone  had  made  those  acquisitions  pos- 
sible; as  that  according  to  which  he  unconsciously 
worked,  filled  in  this  framework  by  degrees  with 
these  later  acquisitions  of  thought,  feeling,  and 
experience,  as  one  by  one  they  arrayed  them- 
selves in  the  garment  and  vesture  of  words. 

Here  then  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that 
language  should  be  thus  instructive  for  us,  that 
it  should  yield  us  so  much,  when  we  come  to 
analyse  and  probe  it ;  and  yield  us  the  more,  the 


28  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

more  deeply  and  accurately  we  do  so.  It  is  full 
of  instruction,  because  it  is  the  embodiment,  the 
incarnation,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of  the  feelings 
and  thoughts  and  experiences  of  a  nation, 
yea,  often  of  many  nations,  and  of  all  which 
through  long  centuries  they  have  attained  to 
and  won.  It  stands  like  the  Pillars  of  Hercules, 
to  mark  how  far  the  moral  and  intellectual  con- 
quests of  mankind  have  advanced,  only  not  like 
those  pillars,  fixed  and  immovable,  but  ever  itself 
advancing  with  the  progress  of  these.  The 
mighty  moral  instincts  which  have  been  working 
in  the  popular  mind  have  found  therein  their 
unconscious  voice  ;  and  the  single  kinglier  spirits 
that  have  looked  deeper  into  the  heart  of  things 
have  oftentimes  gathered  up  all  they  have  seen 
into  some  one  word,  which  they  have  launched 
upon  the  world,  and  with  which  they  have  en- 
riched it  for  ever — making  in  that  new  word  a 
new  region  of  thought  to  be  henceforward  in 
some  sort  the  common  heritage  of  all.  Lan- 
guage is  the  amber  in  which  a  thousand  precious 
and  subtle  thoughts  have  been  safely  embedded 
and  preserved.  It  has  arrested  ten  thousand 
lightning  flashes  of  genius,  which,  unless  thus 
fixed  and  arrested,  might  have  been  as  bright, 
but  would  have  also  been  as  quickly  passing  and 
perishing,  as  the  lightning.  '  Words  convey  the 
mental  treasures  of  one  period  to  the  generations 
that  follow  ;  and  laden  with  this,  their  precious 
freight,  they  sail  safely  across  gulfs  of  time  in 


i.  Greatness  of  a  Language.  29 

which  empires  have  suffered  shipwreck,  and 
the  languages  of  common  life  have  sunk  into 
oblivion.'  And  for  all  these  reasons  far  more 
and  mightier  in  every  way  is  a  language  than 
any  one  of  the  works  which  may  have  been 
composed  in  it.  For  that  work,  great  as  it  may 
be,  at  best  embodies  what  was  in  the  heart  and 
mind  of  a  single  man,  but  this  of  a  nation.  The 
Iliad  is  great,  yet  not  so  great  in  strength  or 
power  or  beauty  as  the  Greek  language.*  Para- 
dise Lost  is  a  noble  possession  for  a  people  to 
have  inherited,  but  the  English  tongue  is  a 
nobler  heritage  yet.f 

And  imperfectly  as  we  may  apprehend  all 
this,  there  is  an  obscure  sense,  or  instinct  I 
might  call  it,  in  every  one  of  us,  of  this  truth. 
We  all,  whether  we  have  given  a  distinct  ac- 
count of  the  matter  to  ourselves  or  not,  believe 
that  words  which  we  use  are  not  arbitrary 
and  capricious  signs,  affixed  at  random  to  the 
things  which  they  designate,  for  which  any 
other  might  have  been  substituted  as  well,  but 


*  On  the  Greek  language  and  its  merits,  as  compared 
with  the  other  Indo-European  languages,  see  Curtius, 
History  of  Greece,  English  translation,  vol.  i.  pp.  18-28. 

t  Gerber  {Sprache  ah  Kunst,  vol.  i.  p.  274) :  Es  ist  ein 
bedeutender  Fortschritt  in  der  Erkenntniss  des  Menschen 
dass  man  jetzt  Sprachen  lernt  nicht  bloss,  um  sich  den 
Gedankeninhalt,  den  sie  offenbaren,  anzueignen,  sondern 
zugleich  um  sie  selbst  als  herrliche,  architektonische 
Geisteswerke  kennen  zu  lernen,  und  sich  an  ihrer  Kunst- 
6chonheit  zu  erfreuen. 


30  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

that  they  stand  in  a  real  relation  to  these.  And 
this  sense  of  the  significance  of  names,  that  they 
are,  or  ought  to  be, — that  in  a  world  of  absolute 
truth  they  ever  would  be, — the  expression  of  the 
innermost  character  and  qualities  of  the  things 
or  persons  that  bear  them,  speaks  out  in  various 
ways.  It  is  reported  of  Boiardo,  author  of  a 
poem  without  which  we  should  probably  have 
never  seen  the  Orlando  Furioso  of  Ariosto,  that 
he  was  out  hunting,  when  the  name  Rodomonte 
presented  itself  to  him  as  exactly  fitting  a  fore- 
most person  of  the  epic  he  was  composing ;  and 
that  instantly  returning  home,  he  caused  all  the 
joy-bells  of  the  village  to  be  rung,  to  celebrate 
the  happy  invention.  This  story  may  remind 
us  of  another  which  is  told  of  the  greatest 
French  novelist  of  modern  times.  A  friend  of 
Balzac's,  who  has  written  some  Recollections  of 
him,  tells  us  that  he  would  sometimes  wander 
for  days  through  the  streets  of  Paris,  studying 
the  names  over  the  shops,  as  being  sure  that 
there  was  a  name  more  appropriate  than  any 
other  to  some  character  which  he  had  conceived, 
and  hoping  to  light  on  it  there. 

You  must  all  have  remarked  the  amusement 
and  interest  which  children  find  in  any  notable 
agreement  between  a  name  and  the  person  who 
owns  that  name,  as,  for  instance,  if  Mr.  Long 
is  tall — or,  which  naturally  takes  a  still  stronger 
hold  upon  them,  in  any  manifest  contradiction 
between  the  name  and  the  name-bearer ;  if  Mr. 


Agreeme7it  between  Names  and  Things.  3 


1 


Strongitharm  is  a  weakling,  or  Mr.  Black  an 
albino :  the  former  striking  from  a  sense  of  fit- 
ness, the  latter  from  one  of  incongruity.  Nor  is 
this  a  mere  childish  entertainment.  It  con- 
tinues with  us  through  life ;  and  that  its  roots 
lie  deep  is  attested  by  the  earnest  use  which  is 
often  made,  and  that  at  the  most  earnest  mo- 
ments of  men's  lives,  of  such  agreements  or 
disagreements  as  these.  Such  use  is  not  un- 
frequent  in  Scripture,  though  it  is  seldom  possi- 
ble to  reproduce  it  in  English,  as  for  instance  in 
the  comment  of  Abigail  on  her  husband  Nabal's 
name :  '  As  his  name  is,  so  is  he  ;  Nabal  is  his 
name,  and  folly  is  with  him  '  (1  Sam.  xxv.  25). 
And  again,  '  Call  me  not  Naomi,'  exclaims  the 
desolate  widow — 'call  me  not  Naomi  [or pleasant- 
ness'] ;  call  me  Marah  [or  bitterness'],  for  the 
Almighty  hath  dealt  very  bitterly  with  me.' 
She  cannot  endure  that  the  name  she  bears 
should  so  strangely  contradict  the  thing  she  is. 
Shakespeare,  in  like  manner,  reveals  his  own  pro- 
found knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  when  he 
makes  old  John  of  Gaunt,  worn  with  long  sick- 
ness, and  now  ready  to  depart,  play  with  his  name, 
and  dwell  upon  the  consent  between  it  and  his 
condition  ;  so  that  when  his  royal  nephew  asks 
him, '  How  is  it  with  aged  Gaunt  ? '  he  answers, 

'  Oh,  how  that  name  befits  my  composition, 
Old  Gaunt  indeed,  and  gaunt  in  being  old — 
Gaunt  am  I  for  the  grave,  gaunt  as  the  grave — '* 

•  Ajax,  or  Alas,  in  the  play  cf  Sophocles,  which  bears 


32  Introductory  Lecture.  lkct. 

with  much  more  in  the  same  fashion  ;  while  it 
is  into  the  mouth  of  the  slight  and  frivolous 
king-  that  Shakespeare  puts  the  exclamation  of 
wonder, 

'Can  sick  men  play  so  nicely  with  their  names?'* 

Mark  too  how,  if  one  is  engaged  in  a  con- 
troversy or  quarrel,  and  his  name  imports  some- 
thing good,  his  adversary  will  lay  hold  of  the 
name,  will  seek  to  bring  out  a  real  contradiction 
between  the  name  and  the  bearer  of  the  name, 
so  that  he  shall  appear  as  one  presenting  him- 
self under  false  colours,  affecting  a  merit  which 
he  does  not  really  possess.  Examples  of  this 
abound.  There  was  one  Vigilantius  in  the  early 
Church  ; — his  name  might  be  interpreted  '  The 
Watchful.'  He  was  at  issue  with  St.  Jerome 
about  certain  vigils  ;  these  he  thought  perilous 
to  Christian  morality,  while  Jerome  was  a  very 
eager  promoter  of  them  ;  who  instantly  gave  a 


his  name,  does  the  same  with  the  alal  which  lies  in  that 
name  (422,  423) ;  just  as  in  the  Bacchce  of  Euripides,  not 
Pentheus  himself,  but  others  for  him,  indicate  the  prophecy 
of  a  mighty  nevdos  or  grief,  which  is  shut  up  in  his  name 
(367).  A  tragic  writer,  less  known  than  Euripides,  does 
the  same  :  Hevdeiis,  (aofiivrjs  crvfMpopas  inoawfios.  Eteocles 
in  the  Phaztiisstz  of  Euripides  makes  a  play  of  the  same 
kind  on  the  name  of  Polynices. 

*  '  Hus '  is  Bohemian  for  '  goose '  [the  two  words 
being  in  fact  cognate  forms]  ;  and  here  we  have  the 
explanation  of  the  prophetic  utterance  of  Hus,  namely, 
that  in  place  of  one  goose,  tame  and  weak  of  wing,  God 
would  send  falcons  and  eagles  before  long. 


*-       Agreement  of  Names  and  Things.     33 

turn  to  his  name,  and  proclaimed  that  he,  the 
enemy  of  these  watches,  the  partisan  of  slumber 
and  sloth,  should  have  been  not  Vigilantius  or 
The  Watcher,  but '  Dormitantius'  or  The  Sleeper 
rather.  Felix,  Bishop  of  Urgel,  a  chief  champion 
in  the  eighth  century  of  the  Adoptianist  heresy,  is 
constantly  '  Infelix '  in  the  writings  of  his  adver- 
sary Alcuin.  The  Spanish  peasantry  during  the 
Peninsular  War  would  not  hear  of  Bonaparte, 
but  changed  the  name  to  '  Malaparte,'  as  de- 
signating far  better  the  perfidious  kidnapper 
of  their  king  and  enemy  of  their  independence. 
It  will  be  seen  then  that  vEschylus  is  most  true 
to  nature,  when  in  his  Prometheus  Bound  he 
makes  Strength  tauntingly  to  remind  Prome- 
theus, or  The  Prudent,  how  ill  his  name  and  the 
lot  which  he  has  made  for  himself  agreed,  bound 
as  he  is  with  adamantine  chains  to  his  rock,  and 
bound,  as  it  might  seem,  for  ever.  When  Napo- 
leon said  of  Count  Lobau,  whose  proper  name 
was  Mouton,  '  Mon  mouton  c'est  un  lion,'  it  was 
the  same  instinct  at  work,  though  working  from 
an  opposite  point.  It  made  itself  felt  no  less  in 
the  bitter  irony  which  gave  to  the  second  of  the 
Ptolemies,  the  brother-murdering  king,  the  title 
of  Philadelphus. 

But  more  frequent  still  is  this  hostile  use 
of  names,  this  attempt  to  place  them  and  their 
owners  in  the  most  intimate  connexion,  to  make, 
so  to  speak,  the  man  answerable  for  his  name, 
where  the  name  does  not  thus  need  to  be  re- 

D 


34  Introductory  Lecture.  l*ct. 

versed  ;  but  may  be  made  as  it  now  is,  or  with 
very  slightest  change,  to  contain  a  confession  of 
the  ignorance,  worthlessness,  or  futility  of  the 
bearer.  If  it  implies,  or  can  be  made  to  imply, 
anything  bad,  it  is  instantly  laid  hold  of  as  ex- 
pressing the  very  truth  about  him.  You  know 
the  story  of  Helen  of  Greece,  whom  in  two  of 
his  '  mighty  lines '  Marlowe's  Faust  so  magni- 
ficently apostrophizes : 

'  Is  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships, 
And  burned  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium?' 

It  is  no  frigid  conceit  of  the  Greek  poet,  when 
one  passionately  denouncing  the  ruin  which 
she  wrought,  finds  that  ruin  couched  and  fore- 
announced  in  her  name  ;  *  as  in  English  it  might 
be,  and  has  been,  reproduced — 

'  Hell  in  her  name,  and  heaven  in  her  looks.' 

Or  take  other  illustrations.  Pope  Hildebrand  in 
one  of  our  Homilies  is  styled  '  Brand  of  Hell,'  as 
setting  the  world  in  a  blaze  ;  as  '  Hollenbrand  ' 
he  appears  constantly  in  German.  Tott  and 
Teuffel  were  two  officers  of  high  rank  in  the 
army  which  Gustavus  Adolphus  brought  with 
him  into  Germany.  You  may  imagine  how 
soon  those  of  the  other  side  declared  that  he 
had  brought  '  death '  and  '  hell '  in  his  train. 
There  were  two  not  inconsiderable  persons  in 


*  'EXeVas    [  =  eXeVaos],   eXavdpos,  eX«T7-oXir,  ./Eschylus, 
Agamemnon,  636. 


i.  Names  changed  to  worse.  35 

the  time  of  our  Civil  Wars,  Vane  (not  the 
'young  Vane'  of  Milton's  and  Wordsworth's 
sonnets),  and  Sterry  ;  and  one  of  these,  Sterry, 
was  chaplain  to  the  other.  Baxter,  having  oc- 
casion to  mention  them  in  his  profoundly  in- 
structive Narrative  of  J  lis  Life  and  Times,  and 
liking  neither,  cannot  forbear  to  observe,  that 
1 vanity  and  sterility  were  never  more  fitly 
joined  together  ; '  and  speaks  elsewhere  of  '  the 
vanity  of  Vane,  and  the  sterility  of  Sterry.' 
This  last,  let  me  observe,  is  an  eminently  unjust 
charge,  as  Baxter  himself  in  a  later  volume* 
has  very  handsomely  acknowledged.! 


*  Catholic  Theology,  pt.  3,  p.  107. 

t  A  few  more  examples,  in  a  note,  of  this  contumely 
of  names.  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  or  '  the  Illustrious,'  is 
for  the  Jews,  whom  he  so  madly  attempted  to  hellenize, 
Antiochus  Epimanes,  or  '  the  Insane.'  Cicero,  denounc- 
ing Verres,  the  infamous  praetor  of  Sicily,  is  too  skilful  a 
master  of  the  passions  to  allow  the  name  of  the  arch- 
criminal  to  escape  unused.  He  was  indeed  Verres,  for  he 
swept  the  province  ;  he  was  a  sweep-net  for  it  (everriculum 
in  provincia)  ;  and  then  presently,  giving  altogether 
another  turn  to  his  name,  Others,  he  says,  might  be  par- 
tial to  '  jus  verrinum '  (which  might  mean  either  Verrine 
law  or  boar-sauce),  but  not  he.  Tiberius  Claudius  Nero, 
charged  with  being  a  drunkard,  becomes  in  the  popular 
language  '  Biberius  Caldius  Mero.'  The  controversies  of 
the  Church  with  heretics  yield  only  too  abundant  a  sup- 
ply, and  that  upon  both  sides,  of  examples  of  this  kind. 
The  'royal-hearted'  Athanasius  is  'Satanasius'  for  the 
Arians  ;  and  some  of  St.  Cyprian's  adversaries  did  not 
shrink  from  so  foul  a  perversion  of  his  name  as  to  call 
him  Konpiavos,  or  '  the  Dungy.'     But  then  how  often  is 

d  3 


36  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

Where,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  desired  to  do 
a  man  honour,  how  gladly,  in  like  manner,  is  his 


Pelagius  declared  by  the  Church  Fathers  to  be  a  pelagus, 
a  very  ocean  of  wickedness.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
Manicha:ans  changed  their  master's  name  from  Manes  to 
Manichaeus,  that  so  it  might  not  so  nearly  resemble  the 
word  signifying  madness  in  the  Greek  (devitantes  nomen 
insanios,  Augustine,  De  Hcer.  46)  ;  it  did  not  thereby 
escape.  The  Waldenses,  or  Wallenses,  were  declared  by 
Roman  controversialists  to  be  justly  so  called,  as  dwelling 
•  in  valle  densa,'  in  the  thick  valley  of  darkness  and  igno- 
rance. Cardinal  Clesel  was  active  in  setting  forward  the 
Roman  Catholic  reaction  in  Bohemia  with  which  the 
dismal  tragedy  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  began.  It  was  a 
far-fetched  and  not  very  happy  piece  of  revenge,  when  they 
of  the  other  side  took  pleasure  in  spelling  his  name 
'CLesel,'  as  much  as  to  say,  He  of  the  150  ass-power. 
Berengarof  Tours  calls  a  Pope  who  had  taken  sides  against 
him  not  pontifex,  but  'pompifex.'  Metrophanes,  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople,  being  counted  to  have  betrayed 
the  interests  of  the  Greek  Church,  his  spiritual  mother, 
at  the  Council  of  Florence,  saw  his  name  changed  by 
popular  hate  into  '  Metrophonos,'  or  the  '  Matricide.'  In 
the  same  way  of  more  than  one  Pope  Urbanus  it  was 
declared  that  he  would  have  been  better  named  '  Tur- 
banus'  (quasi  turbans  Ecclesiam).  Mahomet  appears 
as  '  Bafomet,'  influenced  perhaps  by  '  bafa,'  a  lie,  in 
Provencal.  Shechem,  a  chief  city  of  the  heretical 
Samaritans,  becomes  '  Sychar,' or  city  of  lies  (see  John 
iv.  5),  so  at  least  some  will  have  it,  on  the  lips  of  the 
hostile  Jews  ;  while  Toulouse,  a  very  seedplot  of  heresies, 
Albigensian  and  other,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  is  declared 
by  writers  of  those  times  to  have  prophesied  no  less  by 
its  name  (Tolosa  =  tota  dolosa).  In  the  same  way  adver- 
saries of  Wiclif  traced  in  his  name  an  abridgement  of 
'wicked-belief.'     Metternich  was  '  Mitternacht,' or  Mid- 


i.  Prophecy  in  Names.  37 

name  seized  on,  if  it  in  any  way  bears  an  honour- 
able significance,  or  is  capable  of  an  honourable 
interpretation — men  finding  in  that  name  a  pre- 
sage and  prophecy  of  that  which  was  actually  in 
its  bearer.  A  multitude  of  examples,  many  of 
them  very  beautiful,  might  be  brought  together 
in  this  kind.  How  often,  for  instance,  and  with 
what  effect,  the  name  of  Stephen,  the  proto- 
martyr,  that  name  signifying  in  Greek  '  the 
Crown,'  was  taken  as  a  prophetic  intimation  of 
the  martyr-crown,  which  it  should  be  given  to 
him,   the  first  in    that   noble   army,    to  wear.* 


night,  for  the  political  reformers  of  Germany  in  the  last 
generation.  It  would  be  curious  to  know  how  often  the 
Sorbonne  has  been  likened  to  a  '  Serbonian '  bog  ;  some 
'privilegium'  declared  to  be  not  such  indeed,  but  a  '  pra- 
vilegium '  rather.  Baxter  complains  that  the  Independents 
called  presbyters  '  priestbiters,'  Presbyterian  ministers 
not  'divines'  but  'dry  vines,'  and  their  Assembly  men 
'Dissembly  men.' 

*  Thus  in  a  sublime  Latin  hymn  by  Adam  of  St. 
Victor : 

Nomen  habes  Coronati; 

Te  tormenta  decet  pati 

Pro  corona  gloriae. 

Elsewhere  the  same  illustrious  hymnologist  plays  in  like 
manner  on  the  name  of  St.  Vincentius  : 

Qui  vince?itis  habet  nomen 
Ex  re  probat  dignum  omen 
Sui  fore  nominis ; 
Vincens  terra,  vincens  mari 
Quidquid  potest  irrogari 
Pcenas  vel  formidinis. 


38  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

Ircnacus  means  in  Greek  '  the  Peaceable ' ;  and 
early  Church  writers  love  to  remark  how  fitly  the 
illustrious  Bishop  of  Lyons  bore  this  name,  set- 
ting forward  as  he  so  earnestly  did  the  peace 
of  the  Church,  resolved  as  he  was,  so  far  as  in 
him  lay,  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  bond  of  peace.*  The  Dominicans  were  well 
pleased  when  their  name  was  resolved  into 
•  Domini  canes ' — the  Lord's  watchdogs  ;  who, 
as  such,  allowed  no  heresy  to  appear  without  at 
once  giving  the  alarm,  and  seeking  to  chase  it 
away.  When  Ben  Jonson  praises  Shakespeare's 
'well-filed  lines' — 

'  In  each  of  which  he  seems  to  shake  a  lance, 
As  brandished  in  the  eyes  of  ignorance' — 

he  is  manifestly  playing  with  his  name.  Fuller, 
too,  our  own  Church  historian,  who  played  so 
often  upon  the  names  of  others,  has  a  play  made 
upon  his  own  in  some  commendatory  verses 
prefixed  to  one  of  his  books  : 


In  the  Bull  for  the  canonization  of  Sta.  Clara,  the  canoniz- 
ing Pope  does  not  disdain  a  similar  play  upon  her  name  : 
Clara  claris  praeclara  meritis,  magnae  in  cselo  claritate 
gloria?,  ac  in  terra  miraculorum  sublimium,  clare  claret. 
On  these  'prophetic'  names  in  the  heathen  world  see 
Pott,  Wurzel-Wbrterbuch,  vol.  ii.  part  2,  p.  522. 

*  We  cannot  adduce  St.  Columba  as  another  example 
in  the  same  kind,  seeing  that  this  name  was  not  his  birth- 
right, but  one  given  to  him  by  his  scholars  for  the  dove- 
like gentleness  of  his  character.  So  indeed  we  are  told  ; 
though  it  must  be  owned  that  some  of  the  traits  recorded 
of  him  in  The  Monks  0/ the  West  are  not  columbine  at  all. 


l  Significance  of  Names.  39 

*  Thy  style  is  clear  and  white  ;  thy  very  name 
Speaks  pureness,  and  adds  lustre  to  the  frame.' 

He  plays  himself  upon  it  in  an  epigram  which 
takes  the  form  of  a  prayer : 

(  My  soul  is  stained  with  a  dusky  colour  : 
Let  thy  Son  be  the  soap  ;  I'll  be  the  fuller.' 

John  Careless,  whose  letters  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  in  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs,  writing  to 
Philpot,  exclaims,  '  Oh  good  master  Philpot, 
which  art  a  principal  pot  indeed,  filled  with 
much  precious  liquor, — oh  pot  most  happy  !  of 
the  High  Potter  ordained  to  honour.' 

Herein,  in  this  faith  that  men's  names  were 
true  and  would  come  true,  in  this,  and  not  in 
any  altogether  unreasoning  superstition,  lay  the 
root  of  the  carefulness  of  the  Romans  that  in 
the  enlisting  of  soldiers  names  of  good  omen, 
such  as  Valerius,  Salvius,  Secundus,  should  be 
the  first  called.  Scipio  Africanus,  reproaching 
his  soldiers  after  a  mutiny,  finds  an  aggravation 
of  their  crime  in  the  fact  that  one  with  so  ill- 
omened  a  name  as  Atrius  Umber  should  have 
seduced  them,  and  persuaded  them  to  take 
him  for  their  leader.  So  strong  is  the  convic- 
tion of  men  that  names  are  powers.  Nay,  it 
must  have  been  sometimes  thought  that  the 
good  name  might  so  react  on  the  evil  nature 
that  it  should  not  remain  evil  altogether,  but 
might  be  induced,  in  part  at  least,  to  conform 
itself  to  the  designation  which  it  bore,     Here  we 


4o  Introductory  Lecture.  utcr. 

have  an  explanation  of  the  title  Eumcnides,  or 
the  Well-minded,  given  to  the  Furies  ;  of  Euxine, 
or  the  kind  to  strangers,  to  the  inhospitable 
Black  Sea,  '  stepmother  of  ships,'  as  the  Greek 
poet  called  it  ;  the  explanation  too  of  other 
similar  transformations,  of  the  Greek  Egesta 
transformed  by  the  Romans  into  '  Segesta,'  that 
it  might  not  suggest  'egestas'  or  penury ;*of 
Epidamnus,  which,  in  like  manner  seeming  too 
suggestive  of  '  damnum,'  or  loss,  was  changed 
into  '  Dyrrachium  ' ;  of  Maleventum,  which  be- 
came '  Beneventum  ' ;  of  Cape  Tormentoso,  or 
Stormy  Cape,  changed  into  '  Cape  of  Good 
Hope ' ;  of  the  fairies  being  always  respectfully 
spoken  of  as  '  the  good  people  '  in  Ireland,  even 
while  they  are  accredited  with  any  amount  of 
mischief;  of  the  dead  spoken  of  alike  in  Greek 
and  in  Latin  simply  as  'the  majority'  ;  of  the 
dying,  in  Greek  liturgies  remembered  as  '  those 
about  to  set  forward  upon  a  journey '  f  :  of  the 
slain  in  battle  designated  in  German  as  '  those 
who  remain,'  that  is,  on  the  field  of  battle  ; 
of  syXoyoa,  or  '  the  blessing,'  as  a  name  given 
in  modern  Greek  to  the  smallpox  !  We  may 
compare  as  an  example  of  this  same  euphem- 
ism the  famous  '  Vixerunt '  with  which  Cicero 


*  [But  the  form  Segesta  is  probably  older  than  Egesta, 
the  Romans  here,  as  in  other  cases,  retaining  the  original 
initial  s,  which  in  Greek  is  represented  generally  by  the 
rough,  sometimes  by  the  smooth  breathing.] 

f    01  (ijodiVOITtS. 


Navies  in  Scripture  changed.        41 


announced  that  the  conspirators  against  the 
Roman  State  had  paid  the  full  penalty  of  their 
treason. 

Let  me  observe,  before  leaving  this  subject, 
that  not  in  one  passage  only,  but  in  passages 
innumerable,  Scripture  sets  its  seal  to  this  signi- 
ficance of  names,  to  the  fact  that  the  seeking 
and  the  finding  of  this  significance  is  not  a  mere 
play  upon  the  surface  of  things  :  it  everywhere 
recognizes  the  inner  band,  which  ought  to  con- 
nect, and  in  a  world  of  truth  would  connect, 
together  the  name  and  the  person  or  thing 
bearing  the  name.  Scripture  sets  its  seal  to  this 
by  the  weight  and  solemnity  which  it  everywhere 
attaches  to  the  imposing  of  names  ;  this  in  many 
instances  not  being  left  to  hazard,  but  assumed 
by  God  as  his  own  peculiar  care.  '  Thou  shalt 
call  his  name  Jesus'  (Matt.  i.  21  ;  Luke  i.  31)  is 
of  course  the  most  illustrious  instance  of  all  ; 
but  there  is  a  multitude  of  other  cases  in  point  ; 
names  given  by  God,  as  that  of  John  to  the 
Baptist  ;  or  changed  by  Him,  as  Abram's  to 
Abraham  (Gen.  xvii.  3),  Sarai's  to  Sarah, 
Hoshea's  to  Joshua  ;  or  new  names  added  by 
Him  to  the  old,  when  by  some  mighty  act  of 
faith  the  man  had  been  lifted  out  of  his  old  life 
into  a  new  ;  as  Israel  added  to  Jacob,  and  Peter 
to  Simon,  and  Boanerges  or  Sons  of  thunder  to 
the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  (Mark  iii.  17).  The 
same  feeling  is  at  work  elsewhere.  A  Pope 
on  his  election  always  takes  a  new  name.     Or 


42  Introductory  Lecture.  lect. 

when  it  is  intended  to  make,  for  good  or  for  ill, 
an  entire  breach  with  the  past,  this  is  one  of  the 
means  by  which  it  is  sought  to  effect  as  much 
(2  Chr.  xxxvi.  4 ;  Dan.  i.  7).  How  far  this 
custom  reaches,  how  deep  the  roots  which  it 
casts,  is  exemplified  well  in  the  fact  that  the 
West  Indian  buccaneer  makes  a  like  change 
of  name  on  entering  that  society  of  blood.  It  is 
in  both  cases  a  sort  of  token  that  old  things  have 
passed  away,  that  all  have  become  new  to  him. 
But  we  must  draw  to  a  close.  Enough  has 
been  said  to  attest  and  to  justify  the  wide-spread 
faith  of  men  that  names  are  significant,  and  that 
things  and  persons  correspond,  or  ought  to  cor- 
respond, to  them.  You  will  not,  then,  find  it  a 
laborious  task  to  persuade  your  pupils  to  admit 
as  much.  They  are  prepared  to  accept,  they 
will  be  prompt  to  believe  it.  And  great  indeed 
will  be  our  gains,  their  gains  and  ours, — for 
teacher  and  taught  will  for  the  most  part  enrich 
themselves  together, — if,  having  these  treasures 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge  lying  round  about  us, 
so  far  more  precious  than  mines  of  Californian 
gold,  we  determine  that  we  will  make  what 
portion  of  them  we  can  our  own,  that  we  will 
ask  the  words  which  we  use  to  give  an  account 
of  themselves,  to  say  whence  they  are,  and 
whither  they  tend.  Then  shall  we  often  rub  off 
the  dust  and  rust  from  what  seemed  to  us  but  a 
common  token,  which  as  such  we  had  taken  and 
given  a  thousand   times  ;   but  which   now   we 


i.  Words  Implements  of  Teaching.      43 

shall  perceive  to  be  a  precious  coin,  bearing  the 
' image  and  superscription'  of  the  great  King: 
then  shall  we  often  stand  in  surprise  and  in 
something  of  shame,  while  we  behold  the  great 
spiritual  realities  which  underlie  our  common 
speech,  the  marvellous  truths  which  we  have 
been  witnessing  for  in  our  words,  but,  it  may 
be,  witnessing  against  in  our  lives.  And  as  you 
will  not  find,  for  so  I  venture  to  promise,  that 
this  study  of  words  will  be  a  dull  one  when  you 
undertake  it  yourselves,  as  little  need  you  fear 
that  it  will  prove  dull  and  unattractive,  when  you 
seek  to  make  your  own  gains  herein  the  gains 
also  of  those  who  may  be  hereafter  committed 
to  your  charge.  Only  try  your  pupils,  and  mark 
the  kindling  of  the  eye,  the  lighting  up  of  the 
countenance,  the  revival  of  the  flagging  attention, 
with  which  the  humblest  lecture  upon  words, 
and  on  the  words  especially  which  they  are  daily 
using,  which  are  familiar  to  them  in  their  play 
or  at  their  church,  will  be  welcomed  by  them. 
There  is  a  sense  of  reality  about  children  which 
makes  them  rejoice  to  discover  that  there  is  also 
a  reality  about  words,  that  they  are  not  merely 
arbitrary  signs,  but  living  powers  ;  that,  to  reverse 
the  saying  of  one  of  England's  '  false  prophets,' 
they  may  be  the  fool's  counters,  but  are  the  wise 
man's  money ;  not,  like  the  sands  of  the  sea, 
innumerable  disconnected  atoms,  but  growing 
out  of  roots,  clustering  in  families,  connecting 
and  intertwining  themselves  with  all  that  men 


44  Introductory  Lccttire.  ««■. 

have  been  doing  and  thinking  and  feeling  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world  till  now. 

And  it  is  of  course  our  English  tongue,  out 
of  which  mainly  we  should  seek  to  draw  some  of 
the  hid  treasures  which  it  contains,  from  which 
we  should  endeavour  to  remove  the  veil  which 
custom  and  familiarity  have  thrown  over  it. 
We  cannot  employ  ourselves  better.  There  is 
nothing  that  will  more  help  than  will  this  to 
form  an  English  heart  in  ourselves  and  in  others. 
We  could  scarcely  have  a  single  lesson  on  the 
growth  of  our  English  tongue,  we  could  scarcely 
follow  up  one  of  its  significant  words,  without 
having  unawares  a  lesson  in  English  history  as 
well,  without  not  merely  falling  on  some  curious 
fact  illustrative  of  our  national  life,  but  learning 
also  how  the  great  heart  which  is  beating  at  the 
centre  of  that  life  was  gradually  shaped  and 
moulded.  We  should  thus  grow  too  in  our 
sense  of  connexion  with  the  past,  of  gratitude 
and  reverence  to  it ;  we  should  rate  more  highly 
and  thus  more  truly  all  which  it  has  bequeathed 
to  us,  all  that  it  has  made  ready  to  our  hands. 
It  was  not  a  small  matter  for  the  children  of 
Israel,  when  they  came  into  Canaan,  to  enter 
upon  wells  which  they  digged  not,  and  vineyards 
which  they  had  not  planted,  and  houses  which 
they  had  not  built ;  but  how  much  vaster  a  boon, 
how  much  more  glorious  a  prerogative,  for  any 
one  generation  to  enter  upon  the  inheritance  of 
a  language  which  other   generations  by  their 


i.         Words  Implements  of  Teaching.       45 

truth  and  toil  have  made  already  a  receptacle 
of  choicest  treasures,  a  storehouse  of  so  much 
unconscious  wisdom,  a  fit  organ  for  expressing 
the  subtlest  distinctions,  the  tenderest  senti- 
ments, the  largest  thoughts,  and  the  loftiest 
imaginations,  which  the  heart  of  man  has  at 
any  time  conceived.  And  that  those  who  have 
preceded  us  have  gone  far  to  accomplish  this 
for  us,  I  shall  rejoice  if  I  am  able  in  any  degree 
to  make  you  feel  in  the  lectures  which  will 
follow  the  present 


46  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 


LECTURE   II. 

ON  THE  POETRY   IN   WORDS. 

I  SAID  in  my  last  lecture,  or  rather  I  quoted 
another  who  had  said,  that  language  is  fossil 
poetry.  It  is  true  that  for  us  very  often  this 
poetry  which  is  bound  up  in  words  has  in  great 
part  or  altogether  disappeared.  We  fail  to  re- 
cognize it,  partly  from  long  familiarity  with  it, 
partly  from  insufficient  knowledge,  partly,  it  may 
be,  from  never  having  had  our  attention  called 
to  it.  None  have  pointed  it  out  to  us  ;  we  may 
not  ourselves  have  possessed  the  means  of  de- 
tecting it ;  and  thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  we 
have  been  in  close  vicinity  to  this  wealth,  which 
yet  has  not  been  ours.  Margaret  has  not  been 
for  us  'the  Pearl,'  nor  Esther  'the  Star,'  nor 
Susanna  '  the  Lily,'  *  nor  Stephen  '  the  Crown/ 
nor  Albert  '  the  illustrious  in  birth.'  '  In  our 
ordinary  language,'  as  Montaigne  has  said, '  there 
are  several  excellent  phrases  and  metaphors  to 

*  See  Jacob  Grimm,  Uebet  Frauc7inamen  aus  Blumeny 
in  his  Klehiere  Sckriften,vo\.  ii.  pp.  366-401  ;  and  on  the 
subject  of  this  paragraph  more  generally,  Schleicher,  Die 
Deutsche  Sprache,  p.  115  sqq. 


u.  Words  faded  Metaphors.  47 

be  met  with,  of  which  the  beauty  is  withered 
by  age,  and  the  colour  is  sullied  by  too  common 
handling ;  but  that  takes  nothing  from  the 
relish  to  an  understanding  man,  neither  does 
it  derogate  from  the  glory  of  those  ancient 
authors,  who,  'tis  likely,  first  brought  those 
words  into  that  lustre.5  We  read  in  one  of 
Moliere's  most  famous  comedies  of  one  who  was 
surprised  to  discover  that  he  had  been  talking 
prose  all  his  life  without  being  aware  of  it.  If 
we  knew  all,  we  might  be  much  more  sur- 
prised to  find  that  we  had  been  talking  poetry, 
without  ever  having  so  much  as  suspected  this. 
For  indeed  poetry  and  passion  seek  to  insinuate, 
and  do  insinuate  themselves  everywhere  in 
language  ;  they  preside  continually  at  the  giving 
of  names  ;  they  enshrine  and  incarnate  them- 
selves in  these  :  for  '  poetry  is  the  mother  tongue 
of  the  human  race,'  as  a  great  German  writer 
has  said.  My  present  lecture  shall  contain  a 
few  examples  and  illustrations,  by  which  I  would 
make  the  truth  of  this  appear. 

'  Iliads  without  a  Homer,'  some  one  has 
called,  with  a  little  exaggeration,  the  beautiful 
but  anonymous  ballad  poetry  of  Spain.  One 
may  be  permitted,  perhaps,  to  push  the  ex- 
aggeration a  little  further  in  the  same  direction, 
and  to  apply  the  same  language  not  merely  to 
a  ballad  but  to  a  word.  For  poetry,  which  is 
passion  and  imagination  embodying  themselves 
in  words,  does  not  necessarily  demand  a  com- 


48  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  wct. 

bination  of  words  for  this.  Of  this  passion  and 
imagination  a  single  word  may  be  the  vehicle. 
As  the  sun  can  image  itself  alike  in  a  tiny  dew- 
drop  or  in  the  mighty  ocean,  and  can  do  it, 
though  on  a  different  scale,  as  perfectly  in  the 
one  as  in  the  other,  so  the  spirit  of  poetry  can 
dwell  in  and  glorify  alike  a  word  and  an  Iliad. 
Nothing  in  language  is  too  small,  as  nothing  is 
too  great,  for  it  to  fill  with  its  presence.  Every- 
where it  can  find,  or,  not  finding,  can  make,  a 
shrine  for  itself,  which  afterwards  it  can  render 
translucent  and  transparent  with  its  own  in- 
dwelling glory.  On  every  side  we  are  beset 
with  poetry.  Popular  language  is  full  of  it, 
of  words  used  in  an  imaginative  sense,  of  things 
called — and  not  merely  in  transient  moments  of 
high  passion,  and  in  the  transfer  which  at  such 
moments  finds  place  of  the  image  to  the  thing 
imaged,  but  permanently, — by  names  having 
immediate  reference  not  to  what  they  are,  but  to 
what  they  are  like.  All  language  is  in  some  sort, 
as  one  has  said,  a  collection  of  faded  metaphors.* 


*  Jean  Paul :  1st  jede  Sprache  in  Riicksicht  geistiger 
Beziehungen  ein  Worterbuch  erblasster  Metaphern. 
We  regret  this,  while  yet  it  is  not  wholly  matter  of  regret. 
Gerber  {Sprache  als  Kunst,  vol.  i.  p.  387)  urges  that  lan- 
guage would  be  quite  unmanageable,  that  the  words 
which  we  use  would  be  continually  clashing  with  and 
contradicting  one  another,  if  every  one  of  them  retained 
a  lively  impress  of  the  image  on  which  it  originally  rested, 
and  recalled  this  to  our  mind.  His  words,  somewhat  too 
strongly  put,  are  these  :  Fur  den  Usus  der  Sprache,  fur 


»•  Tribidatio7i  from  Tribulum.         49 

Sometimes,  indeed,  they  have  not  faded  at 
all.  Thus  at  Naples  it  is  the  ordinary  language  to 
call  the  lesser  storm-waves  '  pecore,'  or  sheep  ; 
the  larger  '  cavalloni,'  or  big  horses.  Who  that 
has  watched  the  foaming  crests,  the  white  manes, 
as  it  were,  of  the  larger  billows  as  they  advance  in 
measured  order,  and  rank  on  rank,  into  the  bay, 
but  will  own  not  merely  the  fitness,  but  the 
grandeur,  of  this  last  image  ?  Let  me  illustrate 
my  meaning  more  at  length  by  the  word  '  tribula- 
tion.' We  all  know  in  a  general  way  that  this 
word,  which  occurs  not  seldom  in  Scripture  and 
in  the  Liturgy,  means  affliction,  sorrow,  anguish  ; 
but  it  is  quite  worth  our  while  to  know  how  it 
means  this,  and  to  question  '  tribulation  '  a  little 
closer.  It  is  derived  from  the  Latin  '  tribulum,' 
which  was  the  threshing  instrument  or  harrow, 
whereby  the  Roman  husbandman  separated  the 
corn  from  the  husks  ;  and  '  tribulatio '  in  its 
primary  signification  was  the  act  of  this  separa- 
tion. But  some  Latin  writer  of  the  Christian 
Church  appropriated  the  word  and  image   for 


ihren  Verstand  und  ihre  Verstandlichkeit  ist  allerdings 
das  Erblassen  ihrer  Lautbilder,  so  dass  sie  allmahligals 
blosse  Zeichen  fur  Begriffe  fungiren,  nothwendig.  Die 
Ueberzahl  der  Bilder  wiirde,  wenn  sie  alle  als  solche 
wirkten,  nur  verwirren  und  jede  klarere  Auffassung,  wie  sie 
die  praktischen  Zwecke  der  Gegenwart  fordern,  unmoglich 
machen.  Die  Bilder  wiirden  ausserdem  einander  zum 
Theil  zerstoren,  indem  sie  die  Farben  verschiedener 
Spharen  zusammenfliessen  lassen,  und  damit  fur  den  Ver- 
stand nur  Unsinn  bedeuten. 

E 


50  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lkct. 

m  —  ■  —  — ■    ■  ■  ■ "   ■* 

the  setting  forth  of  a  higher  truth  ;  and  sorrow, 
distress,  and  adversity  being  the  appointed  means 
for  the  separating  in  men  of  whatever  in  them 
was  light,  trivial,  and  poor  from  the  solid  and  the 
true,  their  chaff  from  their  wheat,*  he  therefore 
called  these  sorrows  and  trials  '  tribulations,' 
threshings,  that  is,  of  the  inner  spiritual  man, 
without  which  there  could  be  no  fitting  him  for 
the  heavenly  garner.  Now  in  proof  of  my  asser- 
tion that  a  single  word  is  often  a  concentrated 
poem,  a  little  grain  of  pure  gold  capable  of  being 
beaten  out  into  a  broad  extent  of  gold-leaf,  I  will 
quote,  in  reference  to  this  very  word  '  tribula- 
tion,' a  graceful  composition  by  George  Wither, 
a  prolific  versifier,  and  occasionally  a  poet,  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  You  will  at  once  perceive 
that  it  is  all  wrapped  up  in  this  word,  being  from 
first  to  last  only  the  explicit  unfolding  of  the 
image  and  thought  which  this  word  has  implicitly 
given  ;  it  is  as  follows  : — 

'  Till  from  the  straw  the  flail  the  corn  doth  beat, 
Until  the  chaff  be  purged  from  the  wheat, 
Yea,  till  the  mill  the  grains  in  pieces  tear, 
The  richness  of  the  flour  will  scarce  appear. 
So,  till  men's  persons  great  afflictions  touch, 
If  worth  be  found,  their  worth  is  not  so  much, 
Because,  like  wheat  in  straw,  they  have  not  yet 
That  value  which  in  threshing  they  may  get. 
For  till  the  bruising  flails  of  God's  corrections 
Have  threshed  out  of  us  our  vain  affections  ; 
Till  those  corruptions  which  do  misbecome  us 
Are  by  Thy  sacred  Spirit  winnowed  from  us  ; 

*  Triticum  itself  may  be  connected  with  tero,  tritus  ; 
[so  Curtius,  Greek  Etym.,  No.  239]. 


«•  v  Words  Ennobled.  5 1 

Until  from  us  the  straw  of  worldly  treasures, 
Till  all  the  dusty  chaff  of  empty  pleasures, 
Yea,  till  His  flail  upon  us  He  doth  lay, 
To  thresh  the  husk  of  this  our  flesh  away  ; 
And  leave  the  soul  uncovered  ;  nay,  yet  more, 
Till  God  shall  make  our  very  spirit  poor, 
We  shall  not  up  to  highest  wealth  aspire  ; 
But  then  we  shall ;  and  that  is  my  desire.' 

This  deeper  religious  use  of  the  word  '  tribu- 
lation '  was  unknown  to  classical  antiquity,  be- 
longing exclusively  to  the  Christian  writers ; 
and  the  fact  that  the  same  deepening  and  eleva- 
ting of  the  use  of  words  recurs  in  a  multitude 
of  other,  and  many  of  them  far  more  signal, 
instances,  is  one  well  deserving  to  be  followed 
up.  Nothing,  I  am  persuaded,  would  more 
mightily  convince  us  of  the  new  power  which 
Christianity  proved  in  the  world  than  to  com- 
pare the  meaning  which  so  many  words  possessed 
before  its  rise,  and  the  deeper  meaning  which 
they  obtained,  so  soon  as  they  were  assumed  as 
the  vehicles  of  its  life,  the  new  thought  and 
feeling  enlarging,  purifying,  and  ennobling  the 
very  words  which  they  employed.  This  is  a 
subject  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  touch  on 
more  than  once  in  these  lectures,  but  is  itself 
well  worthy  of,  as  it  would  afford  ample  mate- 
rial for,  a  volume. 

On  the  suggestion  of  this  word  '  tribulation,'  I 

will  quote  two  or  three  words  from  Coleridge, 

bearing  on  the  matter  in  hand.     He  has  said, 

'  In  order  to  get  the  full  sense  of  a  word,  we 

should  first  present  to  our  minds  the  visual  image 

B  2 


52  0?i  Uie  Poetry  in  Words.  "*«•- 

that  forms  its  primary  meaning.'  What  admi- 
rable counsel  is  here  !  If  we  would  but  accustom 
ourselves  to  the  doing  of  this,  what  a  vast  in- 
crease of  precision  and  force  would  all  the  lan- 
guage which  we  speak,  and  which  others  speak 
to  us,  obtain  ;  how  often  would  that  which  is  now 
obscure  at  once  become  clear  ;  how  distinct  the 
limits  and  boundaries  of  that  which  is  often  now 
confused  and  confounded !  It  is  difficult  to 
measure  the  amount  of  food  for  the  imagination, 
as  well  as  gains  for  the  intellect,  which  the 
observing  of  this  single  rule  would  afford  us. 
Let  me  illustrate  this  by  one  or  two  examples. 
We  say  of  such  a  man  that  he  is  'desultory.' 
Do  we  attach  any  very  distinct  meaning  to  the 
word  ?  Perhaps  not.  But  get  at  the  image  on 
which  '  desultory '  rests  ;  take  the  word  to  pieces  ; 
learn  that  it  is  from  '  desultor,'  *  one  who  rides 
two  or  three  horses  at  once,  leaps  from  one  to 
the  other,  being  never  on  the  back  of  any  one  of 
them  long  ;  take,  I  say,  the  word  thus  to  pieces, 
and  put  it  together  again,  and  what  a  firm  and 
vigorous  grasp  will  you  have  now  of  its  meaning ! 
A  '  desultory  '  man  is  one  who  jumps  from  one 
study  to  another,  and  never  continues  for  any 
length  of  time  in  one.  Again,  you  speak  of  a 
person  as  '  capricious,'  or  as  full  of  '  caprices.' 
But  what  exactly  are  caprices  ?  '  Caprice '  is 
from  capra,  a  goatf     If  ever  you  have  watched 

*  [Lat.  desultor  is  from  desult-,  the  stem  of  desultu3, 
past  part,  of  desilire,  to  leap  down.] 

t  [The  It.  cafiiiccio,  a  sudden  start,  motion  or  freak,  is 


si.  Pavaner,  Fourmiller,  53 

a  goat,  you  will  have  observed  how  sudden,  how 
unexpected,  how  unaccountable,  are  the  leaps 
and  springs,  now  forward,  now  sideward,  now 
upward,  in  which  it  indulges.  A  '  caprice '  then 
is  a  movement  of  the  mind  as  unaccountable,  as 
little  to  be  calculated  on  beforehand,  as  the 
springs  and  bounds  of  a  goat.  Is  not  the  word 
so  understood  a  far  more  picturesque  one  than 
it  was  before  ?  and  is  there  not  some  real  gain 
in  the  vigour  and  vividness  of  impression  which 
is  in  this  way  obtained  ?  '  Pavaner '  is  the 
French  equivalent  for  our  verb  '  to  strut,' 
'  fourmiller  '  for  our  verb  '  to  swarm.'  But  is  it 
not  a  real  gain  to  know  further  that  the  one  is 
to  strut  as  the  peacock  does,  the  other  to  swarm 
as  do  ants  ?  There  are  at  the  same  time,  as  must 
be  freely  owned,  investigations,  moral  no  less  than 
material,  in  which  the  nearer  the  words  em- 
ployed approach  to  an  algebraic  notation,  and 
the  less  disturbed  or  coloured  they  are  by  any 
reminiscences  of  the  ultimate  grounds  on  which 
they  rest,  the  better  they  are  likely  to  fulfil  the 
duties  assigned  to  them  ;  but  these  are  excep- 
tions.* 

apparently  from  It.  capro,  a  goat,  as  if  '  the  skip  of  a 
goat,'  from  a  Lat.  capriceus  * ;  so  New  English  Diet.'] 
*  A  French  writer,  Adanson,  in  his  Natural  History 
of  Senegal  complains  of  the  misleading  character  which 
names  so  often  have,  and  urges  that  the  only  safety  is 
to  give  to  things  names  which  have  and  can  have  no 
meaning  at  all.  His  words  are  worth  quoting  as  a 
curiosity,  if  nothing  else  :  L'experience  nous  apprend, 
que  la  plupart  des  noms  significatifs  qu'on  a  voulu  donner 


54  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  l^ct. 

The  poetry  which  has  been  embodied  in  the 
names  of  places,  in  those  names  which  designate 
the  leading  features  of  outward  nature,  promon- 
tories, mountains,  capes,  and  the  like,  is  very 
worthy  of  being  elicited  and  evoked  anew,  latent 
as  it  now  has  oftentimes  become.  Nowhere  do 
we  so  easily  forget  that  names  had  once  a  pecu- 
liar fitness,  which  was  the  occasion  of  their 
giving.  Colour  has  often  suggested  the  name, 
as  in  the  well-known  instance  of  our  own 
'  Albion,' — '  the  silver-coasted  isle,'  as  Tenny- 
son so  beautifully  has  called  it, — which  had  this 
name  from  the  white  line  of  cliffs  presented 
by  it  to  those  approaching  it  by  the  narrow 
seas.*     '  Himalaya '    is    '  the   abode   of    snow.' 

a  differens  objets  d'histoire  naturelle,  sont  devenus  faux 
a  mesure  qu'on  a  decouvert  des  qualites,  des  proprieties 
nouvelles  ou  contraires  a  celles  qui  avaientfait  donnerces 
noms  :  il  faut  done,  pour  se  mettre  a  l'abri  des  contra- 
dictions, eViter  les  termes  figures,  et  meme  faire  en  sorte 
qu'on  ne  puisse  les  rapporter  a  quelque  etymologic,  aim 
que  ceux,  qui  ont  la  fureur  des  Etymologies,  ne  soient  pas 
tenus  de  leur  attribuer  une  idee  fausse.  1 1  en  doit  etre  des 
noms,  comme  des  coups  des  jeux  de  hazard,  qui  n'ont 
pour  l'ordinaire  aucune  liaison  entre  eux  :  ils  seraient 
d'autant  meilleurs  qu'ils  seraient  moins  significatifs,  moins 
relatifs  a  d'autres  noms,  ou  a  des  choses  connues,  parce 
que  l'idee  ne  se  fixant  qu'a  un  seul  objet,  le  saisit  beau- 
coup  plus  nettement,  que  lorsqu'elle  se  lie  avec  d'autres 
objets  qui  y  ont  du  rapport.  There  is  truth  in  what  he 
says,  but  the  remedy  he  proposes  is  worse  than  the 
disease. 

*  [The  derivation  of  the  name  Albion  has  not  been 
discovered  yet  ;  it  is  even  uncertain  whether  the  word  is 
indo- European  ;  see  Rhys,  Celtic  Britain,  p.  200,] 


u.  Morea  why  so  named.  55 

Often,  too,  shape  and  configuration  are  incor- 
porated in  the  name,  as  in  '  Trinacria,'  or  '  the 
three-promontoried  land,'  which  was  the  Greek 
name  of  Sicily  ;  in  '  Drepanum,'  or  '  the  sickle,' 
the  name  which  a  town  on  the  north-west  pro- 
montory of  the  island  bore,  from  the  sickle- 
shaped  tongue  of  land  on  which  it  was  built. 
But  more  striking,  as  the  embodiment  of  a 
poetical  feeling,  is  the  modern  name  of  the 
great  southern  peninsula  of  Greece.  We  are 
all  aware  that  it  is  called  the  '  Morea ' ;  but  we 
may  not  be  so  well  aware  from  whence  that  name 
is  derived.  It  had  long  been  the  fashion  among 
ancient  geographers  to  compare  the  shape  of 
this  region  to  a  platane  leaf ;  *  and  a  glance  at 
the  map  will  show  that  the  general  outline  of 
that  leaf,  with  its  sharply-incised  edges,  justified 
the  comparison.  This,  however,  had  remained 
merely  as  a  comparison  ;  but  at  the  shifting  and 
changing  of  names,  that  went  with  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  civilization, 
the  resemblance  of  this  region  to  a  leaf,  not  now 
any  longer  a  platane,  but  a  mulberry  leaf,  ap- 
peared so  strong,  that  it  exchanged  its  classic 
name  of  Peloponnesus  for  '  Morea,'  which  em- 
bodied men's  sense  of  this  resemblance,  morns 
being  a  mulberry  tree  in  Latin,  and  fiopsa  in 
Greek.  This  etymology  of  '  Morea '  has  been 
called  in  question  ;  f  but,  as  it  seems  to  me,  on 

*  Strabo,  viii.  2  ;  Pliny,  H.N.  iv.  5  ;  Agathemerus,  1.  i. 

p.   I  5  ;   i'x6 lv  ^*  OfioLov  a\i]p.a  <pv\\a>  n^aTiwuv. 

t  By  Fallmerayer,  Gcsch.  der  Halbinsel Morea,  p.  240, 


56  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

no  sufficient  grounds.  Deducing,  as  one  objector 
does,  '  Morca '  from  a  Slavonic  word  '  more) 
the  sea,  he  finds  in  this  derivation  a  support  for 
his  favourite  notion  that  the  modern  population 
of  Greece  is  not  descended  from  the  ancient, 
but  consists  in  far  the  larger  proportion  of  in- 
trusive Slavonic  races.  Two  mountains  near 
Dublin,  which  we,  keeping  in  the  grocery  line, 
have  called  the  Great  and  the  Little  Sugarloaf, 
are  named  in  Irish  'the  Golden  Spears/ 

In  other  ways  also  the  names  of  places  will 
oftentimes  embody  some  poetical  aspect  under 
which  now  or  at  some  former  period  men 
learned  to  regard  them.  Oftentimes  when  dis- 
coverers come  upon  a  new  land  they  will  seize 
with  a  firm  grasp  of  the  imagination  the  most 
striking  feature  which  it  presents  to  their  eyes, 
and  permanently  embody  this  in  a  word.  Thus 
the  island  of  Madeira  is  now,  I  believe,  nearly 
bare  of  wood  ;  but  its  sides  were  covered  with 
forests  at  the  time  when  it  was  first  discovered, 
and  hence  the  name,  '  madeira '  in  Portuguese 
having  this  meaning  of  wood.*  Some  have  said 
that  the  first  Spanish  discoverers  of  Florida  gave 
it  this  name  from  the  rich  carpeting  of  flowers 
which,  at  the  time  when  first  their  eyes  beheld 


sqq.  The  island  of  Ceylon,  known  to  the  Greeks  as 
Taprobane,  and  to  Milton  as  well  {P.  L.  iv.  75),  owed 
this  name  to  a  resemblance  which  in  outline  it  bore  to 
the  leaf  of  the  betel  tree.     [This  is  very  doubtful.] 

*  [Port,  madeira^  '  wood,'  is  the  same  word  as  the 
Lat.  materia.] 


ii.  Etymologies  in  Poetry.  57 

it,  everywhere  covered  the  soil.*  Surely  Florida, 
as  the  name  passes  under  our  eye,  or  from  our 
lips,  is  something  more  than  it  was  before,  when 
we  may  thus  think  of  it  as  the  land  of  flowers.f 

*  [The  Spanish  historian  Herrera  says  that  Juan 
Ponce  de  Leon,  the  discoverer  of  Florida,  gave  that  name 
to  the  country  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because  it  was  a 
land  of  flowers,  secondly,  because  it  was  discovered  by  him 
on  March  27,  15 13,  Easter  Day,  which  festival  was  called 
by  the  Spaniards,  '  Pascua  Florida,'  or «  Pascua  de  Flores,' 
see  Herrera's  History,  tr.  by  Stevens,  ii.  p.  33,  and  the 
Discovery  of  Florida  by  R.  Hakluyt,  ed.  by  \V.  B.  Rye  for 
the  Hakluyt  Soc,  185 1,  introd.  p.  x.  ;  cp.  Larousse  (s.v.), 
and  Pierer's  Conversatio?is  Lexicon.  It  is  stated  by 
some  authorities  that  Florida  was  so  called  because  it 
was  discovered  on  Palm  Sunday  ;  this  is  due  to  a  mis- 
taken inference  from  the  names  for  that  Sunday — Pascha 
Florum,  Pascha  Floridum  (Ducange),  Pasque  Fleurie 
(Cotgrave)  ;  see  Did.  Ge'og.  Univ.,  1884,  and  Brockhaus.l 

t  An  Italian  poet,  Fazio  degli  Uberti,  tells  us  that 
Florence  has  its  appellation  from  the  same  cause  : 

Poiche  era  posta  in  un  prato  di  fiori, 
Le  denno  il  nome  bello,  onde  s'  ingloria. 

It  would  be  instructive  to  draw  together  a  collection 
of  etymologies  which  have  been  woven  into  verse.  These 
are  so  little  felt  to  be  alien  to  the  spirit  of  poetry,  that 
they  exist  in  large  numbers,  and  often  lend  to  the  poem 
in  which  they  find  a  place  a  charm  and  interest  of  their 
own.  In  five  lines  of  Paradise  Lost  Milton  introduces 
four  such  etymologies,  namely,  those  of  the  four  fabled 
rivers  of  hell,  though  this  will  sometimes  escape  the  notice 
of  the  English  reader  : 

'  Abhorred  Styx,  the  flood  of  deadly  hate, 
Sad  Acheron  of  sorrow,  black  and  deep, 
Cocytus,  named  of  lamentation  loud 
Heard  on  the  rueful  stream  ;  fierce  Phlegethon, 
Whose  waves  of  torrent  fire  inflame  with  rage.' 


58  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

The  name  of  Port  Natal  also  embodies  a  fact 
which  must  be  of  interest  to  its  inhabitants, 
namely,  that  this  port  was  discovered  on  Christ- 
mas Day,  the  dies  natalis  of  our  Lord. 

Then  again  what  poetry  is  there,  as  indeed 
there  ought  to  be,  in  the  names  of  flowers!  I 
do  not  speak  of  those,  the  exquisite  grace  and 
beauty  of  whose  names  is  so  forced  on  us  that 
we  cannot  miss  it,  such  as 'Aaron's  rod,'  'angel'? 
eyes,'  '  bloody  warrior,'  '  blue-bell,  '  crown  im- 

'  Virgil,  that  great  master  of  the  proprieties,'  as  Bishop 
Pearson  has  so  happily  called  him,  does  not  shun,  but 
rather  loves  to  introduce  them,  as  witness  his  etymology 
of '  Byrsa,'  sEn.  i.  367,  368  ;  v.  59,  63  [but  the  etymology 
here  is  imaginative,  the  name  Byrsa  being  of  Punic,  that 
is  of  Semitic,  origin,  and  meaning  '  a  fortress ' ;  compare 
Heb.  Bosrah~\  ;  of  '  Silvius/  sEn.  vi.  763,  765;  of  'Argi- 
letum,'  where  he  is  certainly  wrong  (sEn.  viii.  345)  ;  of 
*  Latium,'  with  reference  to  Saturn  having  remained  latent 
there  {/En.  viii.  322  ;  cf.  Ovid,  Fasti,  i.  238)  ;  of '  Laurens ' 
(/En.  vii.  63) : 

Latiumque  vocari 
Maluit,  his  quoniam  latuisset  tutus  in  oris  : 

and  again  of  'Avernus'  (  =  aopvos,  sEn.  vi.  243);  being 
indeed  in  this  anticipated  by  Lucretius  (vi.  741)  : 
quia  sunt  avibus  contraria  cunctis. 

Ovid's  taste  is  far  from  faultless,  and  his  example  cannot 
go  for  much  ;  but  he  is  always  a  graceful  versifier, 
and  his  Fasti  swarms  with  etymologies,  correct  and  in- 
correct ;  as  of '  Agonalis'  (i.  322),  of  '  Aprilis'  (iv.  89),  of 
'Augustus'  (i.  609-614),  of  'Februarius'  (ii.  19-22),  of 
'hostia'  (i.  336),  of  'Janus'  (i.  120-127),  of  'Junius' 
(vi.  26),  of  'Lemures'  (v.  479-484),  of  'Lucina'  (ii.  449), 
of'majestas'  (v.  26),  of  'Orion'  (v.  535),  of  'pecunia' 
Iv.  280,  281),  of  'senatus'  (v.  64),  of  'Sulmo'(iv.  79  ;  cf. 


u.     Becmtiful  Names  of  Wild  Flowers.    59 

perial,' '  cuckoo-flower,'  blossoming  as  this  orchis 
does  when  the  cuckoo  is  first  heard,*  '  eye-bright,' 
1  forget-me-not,'  '  gilt-cup  '  (a  local  name  for  the 
butter-cup,  drawn  from  the  golden  gloss  of  its 
petals),  'hearts-ease,'  ' herb-of-grace,'  'Jacob's 
ladder,'  'king-cup," lady's  fingers/'Lady's  smock,' 
'Lady's  tresses/'larkspur,'  'Lent  lily,"loose-strife,' 
'love-in-idleness,'  'Love  lies  bleeding,'  '  maiden- 
blush/'maiden-hair,'  'meadow-sweet,"Our  Lady's 
mantle,'  'Our  Lady's  slipper,'  '  queen-of-the- 
meadows,'  '  reine-marguerite,' '  rosemary,' '  snow- 
flake,'  '  Solomon's  seal,"  star  of  Bethlehem,"  sun- 
dew,' 'sweet  Alison,'  'sweet  Cicely,'  'sweet 
William,' '  Traveller's  joy,"  Venus'  looking-glass,J 
'  Virgin's  bower,'  and  the  like  ;  but  take  '  daisy  '  ; 
surely  this  charming  little  English  flower,  which 
has  stirred  the  peculiar  affection  of  English  poets 
from  Chaucer  to  Wordsworth,  and  received  the 
tribute  of  their  song,f  becomes  more  charming 
yet,  when  we  know,  as  Chaucer  long  ago  has 

Silius  Italicus,  ix.  70)  ;  of  'Vesta'  (vi.  299),  of  'victima' 
(i-  335);  °f  'Trinaciis'  (iv.  420).  He  has  them  also 
elsewhere,  as  of 'Tomi'  (Trist.  iii.  9,  33).  Lucilius,  in 
like  manner,  gives  us  the  etymology  of '  iners ' : 

Ut  perhibetur  iners,  ars  in  quo  non  erit  ulla  ; 

Propertius  (iv.  2,  3)  of  '  Vertumnus '  ;  and  Lucretius  of 
'  Magnes '  (vi.  909). 

*  In  a  catalogue  of  English  Plant  Names  I  count 
thirty  in  which  '  cuckoo '  formed  a  component  part 

t  '  Fair  fall  that  gentle  flower, 

A  golden  tuft  set  in  a  silver  crown,' 

as  Brown  exclaims,  whose  singularly  graceful  Pastorals 


60  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

told  us,  that  '  daisy '  is  day's  eye,  or  in  its  early 
spelling  '  daieseighe,'  the  eye  of  day  ;  these  are 
his  words  : 

*  That  men  by  reson  well  it  calle  may 
The  daisie,  or  elles  the  ye  of  day.' 

Chaucer,  ed.  Morris,  vol.  v.  p.  281. 

For  only  consider  how  much  is  implied  here.  To 
the  sun  in  the  heavens  this  name,  eye  of  day,  was 
naturally  first  given,  and  those  who  transferred 
the  title  to  our  little  field  flower  meant  no  doubt 
to  liken  its  inner  yellow  disk  or  shield  to  the 
great  golden  orb  of  the  sun,  and  the  white  florets 
which  encircle  this  disk  to  the  rays  which  the  sun 
spreads  on  all  sides  around  him.  What  imagi- 
nation was  here,  to  suggest  a  comparison  such 
as  this,  binding  together  as  this  does  the  smallest 
and  the  greatest !  what  a  travelling  of  the  poet's 
eye,  with  the  power  which  is  the  privilege  of  that 
eye,  from  earth  to  heaven,  and  from  heaven  to 
earth,  and  of  linking  both  together.  So  too,  call 
up  before  your  mind's  eye  the  '  lavish  gold '  of 
the  drooping  laburnum  when  in  flower,  and  you 
will  recognize  the  poetry  of  the  title,  '  the  golden 
rain,'  which  in  German  it  bears.  '  Celandine ' 
does  not  so  clearly  tell  its  own  tale  ;  and  it  is 
only  when  you  have  followed  up  the  ^sXiSoviov, 
(swallow-wort;,  of  which  *  celandine '  is  the  Eng- 
lish representative,  that  the  word  will  yield  up 
the  poetry  which  is  concealed  in  it. 

should  not  be  suffered  to  fall  altogether  to  oblivion.  In 
Ward's  recent  E?iglish  Poets,  vol.  it,  p.  65,  justice  has  been 
done  to  them,  and  to  their  rare  beauty. 


ii.  Camelopardy  Mariposa.  61 

And  then  again,  what  poetry  is  there  often  in 
the  names  of  birds  and  beasts  and  fishes,  and 
indeed  of  all  the  animated  world  around  us ;  how 
marvellously  are  these  names  adapted  often  to 
bring  out  the  most  striking  and  characteristic 
features  of  the  objects  to  which  they  are  given. 
Thus  when  the  Romans  became  acquainted  with 
the  stately  giraffe,  long  concealed  from  them  in 
the  interior  deserts  of  Africa,  (which  we  learn 
from  Pliny  they  first  did  in  the  shows  exhibited 
by  Julius  Caesar,)  it  was  happily  imagined  to  de- 
signate a  creature  combining,  though  with  infi- 
nitely more  grace,  something  of  the  height  and 
even  the  proportions  of  the  camel  with  the  spotted 
skin  of  the  pard,  by  a  name  which  should  incor- 
porate both  these  its  most  prominent  features,* 
calling  it  the  '  camelopard.'  Nor  can  we,  I  think, 
hesitate  to  accept  that  account  as  the  true  one, 
which  describes  the  word  as  no  artificial  creation 
of  scientific  naturalists,  but  as  bursting  extem- 
pore from  the  lips  of  the  common  people,  who 
after  all  are  the  truest  namers,  at  the  first  moment 
when  the  novel  creature  was  presented  to  their 
gaze.  '  Cerf-volant,'  a  name  which  the  French 
have  so  happily  given  to  the  horned  scarabeus, 
the  same  which  we  somewhat  less  poetically  call 
the  'stag-beetle,'  is  another  example  of  what 
may  be  effected  with  the  old  materials,  by 
merely  bringing  them  into  new  combinations. 

*  Varro  :    Quod   erat  figura  ut  camelus,  maculis  ut 
panthera  ;  and  Horace  {Ep.  ii.  i,  196)  : 

Diversum  confusa  genus  panthera  camelo. 


62  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  i*ct. 

You  know  the  appearance  of  the  lizard,  and 
the  star-Xiko.  shape  of  the  spots  which  are  sown 
over  its  back.    Well,  in  Latin  it  is  called  '  stellio,' 
from  slella,a.star;  just  as  the  basilisk  had  in  Greek 
this  name  of 'little  king' because  of  the  shape  as  of 
a  kingly  crown  which  the  spots  on  its  head  might. 
be  made  by  the  fancy  to  assume.    Follow  up  the 
etymology  of 'squirrel,'  and  you  will  find  that  the 
graceful  creature  which  bears  this  name  has  ob- 
tained it  as  being  wont  to  sit  under  the  shadow  of 
itsown  tail.*  Need  I  remind  you  of  our  'goldfinch,' 
evidently  so   called   from   that  bright  patch  of 
yellow  on  its  wing  ;  our  '  kingfisher,'  having  its 
name  from  the  royal  beauty,  the  kingly  splendour 
of  the  plumage  with  which  it  is  adorned  ?    Some 
might  ask  why  the  stormy  petrel,  a  bird  which 
just  skims  and  floats  on  the  topmost  wave,  should 
bear  this  name  ?     No  doubt  we  have  here  the 
French   '  petrel,'   or  little    Peter,  and  the  bird 
has  in  its  name  an  allusion  to  the  Apostle  Peter, 
who  at  his  Master's  bidding  walked  for  a  while 
on  the  unquiet  surface  of  an  agitated  sea.     The 
'  lady-bird  '  or  '  lady-cow '  is  prettily  named,  as 
indeed  the  whole  legend  about  it  is  full  of  grace 
and  fancy  t ;  but  a  common  name  which  in  many 
of  our   country   parts  this  creature  bears,  the 


*  [The  word  squirrel  is  a  diminutive  of  the  Greek 
word  for  squirrel,  axtovpos,  literally  'shadow-tail';  but 
the  form  of  the  Greek  word  is  probably  due  to  popular 
etymology.] 

t  [For   other  names   for   the    'lady-bird,'    and    the 


h.  Legends  in  Words.  63 


1  golden  knob,'  is  prettier  still.  And  indeed  in 
our  country  dialects  there  is  a  wide  poetical 
nomenclature  which  is  well  worthy  of  recogni- 
tion ;  thus  the  shooting  lights  of  the  Aurora 
Borealis  are  in  Lancashire '  the  Merry  Dancers  ' ; 
clouds  piled  up  in  a  particular  fashion  are  in 
many  parts  of  England  styled  '  Noah's  Ark ' ; 
the  puff-ball  is  '  the  Devil's  snuff-box '  ;  the 
dragon-fly  '  the  Devil's  darning-needle  ' ;  a  large 
black  beetle  '  the  Devil's  coach-horse.'  Any  one 
who  has  watched  the  kestrel  hanging  poised  in 
the  air,  before  it  swoops  upon  its  prey,  will  ac- 
knowledge the  felicity  of  the  name  '  windhover,' 
or  sometimes  '  windfanner,'  which  it  popularly 
bears.* 

The  amount  is  very  large  of  curious  legendary 
lore  which  is  everywhere  bound  up  in  words, 
and  which  they,  if  duly  solicited,  will  give  back 
to  us  again.  For  example,  the  Greek  '  halcyon,' 
which  we  have  adopted  without  change,  has 
reference,  and  wraps  up  in  itself  an  allusion,  to 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  significant  legends 
of  heathen  antiquity  ;  according  to  which  the  sea 
preserved  a  perfect  calmness  for  all  the  period, 
the  fourteen  'halcyon  days,'  during  which  this 
bird  was  brooding  over  her  nest.     The  poetry  of 


reference  in  many  of  them  to  God  and  the  Virgin  Mary, 
see  Grimm,  Teutonic  Mythology,  p.  694.] 

*  In  Wallace's  Tropical  Nature  there  is  a  beautiful 
chapter  on  humming  birds,  and  the  names  which  in 
various  languages  these  exquisite  little  creatures  bear, 


64  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

the  name  survives,  whether  the  name  suggested 
the  legend,  or  the  legend  the  name.  Take  again 
the  names  of  some  of  our  precious  stones,  as  of 
the  topaz,  so  called,  as  some  said,  because  men 
were  only  able  to  conjecture  (tottu^slv)  the  posi- 
tion of  the  cloud-concealed  island  from  which  it 
was  brought* 

Very  curious  is  the  determination  which  some 
words,  indeed  many,  seem  to  manifest,  that  their 
poetry  shall  not  die  ;  or,  if  it  dies  in  one  form, 
that  it  shall  revive  in  another.  Thus  if  there  is 
danger  that,  transferred  from  one  language  to 
another,  they  shall  no  longer  speak  to  the 
imagination  of  men  as  they  did  of  old,  they  will 
make  to  themselves  a  new  life,  they  will  acquire 
a  new  soul  in  the  room  of  that  which  has  ceased 
to  quicken  and  inform  them  any  more.  Let  me 
make  clear  what  I  mean  by  two  or  three  examples. 
The  Germans,  knowing  nothing  of  carbuncles, 
had  naturally  no  word  of  their  own  for  them  ; 
and  when  they  first  found  it  necessary  to  name 
them,  as  naturally  borrowed  the  Latin  '  carbun- 
culus,'  which  originally  had  meant  '  a  little  live 
coal,'  to  designate  these  precious  stones  of  a  fiery 
red.  But  '  carbunculus,'  word  full  of  poetry 
and  life  for  Latin-speaking  men,  would  have 
been  only  an  arbitrary  sign  for  as  many  as 
were  ignorant  of  that  language.     What  then  did 

*  Pliny,  H.N.  xxxvii.  32.  [But  this  is  only  popular 
etymology  :  the  word  can  hardly  be  of  Greek  origin  j  see 
A.  S.  Palmer,  Folk-Etymology,  p.  589.] 


n.  Carbuncle,  Rossignol.  65 

these,  or  what,  rather,  did  the  working  genius  of 
the  language,  do  ?  It  adopted,  but,  in  adopt- 
ing, modified  slightly  yet  effectually  the  word, 
changing  it  into  '  Karfunkel,'  thus  retaining 
the  framework  of  the  original,  yet  at  the  same 
time,  inasmuch  as  'funkeln'  signifies  'to  sparkle,' 
reproducing  now  in  an  entirely  novel  manner 
the  image  of  the  bright  sparkling  of  the  stone, 
for  every  knower  of  the  German  tongue.  '  Mar- 
garita,' or  pearl,  belongs  to  the  earliest  group  of 
Latin  words  adopted  into  English.  The  word, 
however,  told  nothing  about  itself  to  those  who 
adopted  it.  But  the  pearl  might  be  poetically 
contemplated  as  the  sea-stone  ;  and  so  our 
fathers  presently  transformed  '  margarita  '  into 
1  mere-grot,'  which  means  nothing  less.* 

Take  another  illustration  of  this  from  another 
quarter.  The  French  '  rossignol,'  a  nightingale, 
is  undoubtedly  the  Latin  'lusciniola,'  the  diminu- 
tive of '  luscinia,'  with  the  alteration,  so  frequent 
in  the  Romance  languages,  of  the  commencing 
1 1 '  into  '  r.'  Whatever  may  be  the  etymology 
of  'luscinia,'  it  is  plain  that  for  Frenchmen 
in  general  the  word  would  no  longer  suggest 
any  meaning  at  all,  hardly  even  for  French 
scholars,  after  the  serious  transformations  which 
it  had  undergone  ;  while  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
Xa  the  exquisitely  musical  '  rossignol,'  and  still 

*  [Such  is  the  A.S.  form  of  margarita  in  three  versions 
of  the  parable  of  the  Pearl  of  Great  Price,  St.  Matt  xiii. 
45  ;  see  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels,  ed.  Skeat,  1887.] 

F 


66  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lbc. 

more  perhaps  in  the  Italian  •  usignuolo,'  there  is 
an  evident  intention  and  endeavour  to  express 
something  of  the  music  of  the  bird's  song  in  the 
liquid  melody  of  the  imitative  name  which  it 
bears  ;  and  thus  to  put  a  new  soul  into  the 
word,  in  lieu  of  that  other  which  had  escaped. 
Or  again — whatever  may  be  the  meaning  of 
Senlac,  the  name  given  by  Orderic  to  the  ever- 
memorable  battle,  known  to  historians  as  the 
Battle  of  Hastings,  it  certainly  was  not  '  Sang- 
lac,'  or  Lake  of  Blood  ;  the  word  only  shaping 
itself  into  this  significant  form  subsequently  to 
the  battle,  and  in  consequence  of  it. 

One  or  two  examples  more  of  the  perishing 
of  the  old  life  in  a  word,  and  the  birth  of  a  new 
in  its  stead,  may  be  added.  The  old  name  of 
Athens,  'AOyvat,  was  closely  linked  with  the 
fact  that  the  goddess  Pallas  Athene  was  the 
guardian  deity  of  the  city.  The  reason  of  the 
name,  with  other  facts  of  the  old  mythology, 
faded  away  from  the  memory  of  the  peasantry  of 
modern  Greece  ;  but  Athens  is  a  name  which 
must  still  mean  something  for  them.  Accord- 
ingly it  is  not  'Adfjvai  now,  but  'Avdyvat,  or  the 
Blooming,  on  the  lips  of  the  peasantry  round 
about ;  so  Mr.  Sayce  assures  us.  The  same 
process  everywhere  meets  us.  Thus  no  one 
who  has  visited  Lucerne  can  fail  to  remember 
the  rugged  mountain  called  '  Pilatus  '  or  '  Mont 
Pilate,'  which  stands  opposite  to  him  ;  while 
if  he  has  been  among  the  few  who  have  cared 
to  climb  it,  he  will   have  been  shown  by  his 


n.  Mont  de  Pilate.  6~ 

guide  the  lake  at  its  summit  in  which  Pontius 
Pilate  in  his  despair  drowned  himself,  with  an 
assurance  that  from  this  suicide  of  his  the  moun- 
tain obtained  its  name.  Nothing  of  the  kind. 
1  Mont  Pilate '  stands  for  «  Mons  Piteatus,'  '  the 
capped  hill ' ;  the  clouds,  as  one  so  often  sees, 
gathering  round  its  summit,  and  forming  the 
shape  or  appearance  of  a  cap  or  hat.  When  this 
true  derivation  was  forgotten  or  misunderstood, 
the  other  explanation  was  invented  and  imposed.* 
An  instructive  example  this,  let  me  observe  by 
the  way,  of  that  which  has  happened  continually 
in  the  case  of  far  older  legends  ;  I  mean  that 
the  name  has  suggested  the  legend,  and  not 
the  legend  the  name.  We  have  an  apt  illustra- 
tion of  this  in  the  old  notion  that  the  crocodile 
(KpoKoSscXos)  could  not  endure  saffron. 

I  have  said  that  poetry  and  imagination  seek 
to  penetrate  everywhere  ;  and  this  is  literally 
true  ;  for  even  the  hardest,  austerest  studies  can- 
not escape  their  influence  ;  they  will  put  some- 
thing of  their  own  life  into  the  dry  bones  of  a 
nomenclature  which  seems  the  remotest  from 
them,  the  most  opposed  to  them.  Thus  in 
Danish  the  male  and  female  lines  of  descent 
and  inheritance  are  called  respectively  the 
sword-side  and  the  spindle-side.f     He  who  in 

*  [The  old  name  of  Pilatus  was  Fractus  Mons, '  broken 
mountain,'  from  its  rugged  cliffs  and  precipices.  Pilatus 
did  not  become  general  till  the  close  of  the  last  century.] 

t  [In  the  same  way  the  Germans  used  to  employ 
schwert  and  kunkel ;  compare  the  use  of  the  phrases  on 


68  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

prosody  called  a  metrical  foot  consisting  of  one 
long  syllable  followed  by  two  short  (-~~)  a 
1  dactyle  '  or  a  finger,  with  allusion  to  the  long 
first  joint  of  the  finger,  and  the  two  shorter 
which  follow,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  and 
some  one  was  the  first  to  do  it,  must  be  allowed 
to  have  brought  a  certain  amount  of  imagination 
into  a  study  so  alien  to  it  as  prosody  very  well 
might  appear. 

He  did  the  same  in  another  not  very  poetical 
region  who  invented  the  Latin  law-term, '  stellio- 
natus.'  The  word  includes  all  such  legally 
punishable  acts  of  swindling  or  injurious  fraud 
committed  on  the  property  of  another  as  are  not 
specified  in  any  more  precise  enactment ;  being 
drawn  and  derived  from  a  practice  attributed,  I 
suppose  without  any  foundation,  to  the  lizard  or 
'stellio '  we  spoke  of  just  now.  Having  cast  its 
winter  skin,  it  is  reported  to  swallow  it  at  once, 
and  this  out  of  a  malignant  grudge  lest  any 
should  profit  by  that  which,  if  not  now,  was  of 
old  accounted  a  specific  in  certain  diseases. 
The  term  was  then  transferred  to  any  malicious 
wrong  whatever  done  by  one  person  to  another. 

In  other  regions  it  was  only  to  be  expected 
that  we  should  find  poetry.  Thus  it  is  nothing 
strange  that  architecture,  which  has  been  called 
frozen  music,  and  which  is  poetry  embodied  in 

tia  sperehealfe,  and  on  fta  spi7ilhcalfe  in  King  Alfred's 
will  ;  see  Kemble,  Codex  Diplomaticus,  No.  314  (ii.  116), 
Pauli's  Life  of  Alfred^  p.  225,  LappQriberg's  A  ng/o- Saxon 
Kings^  ii.  99  (1881).] 


n. 


Rose-  Window.  69 


material  forms,  should  have  a  language  of  its 
own,  not  dry  nor  hard,  not  of  the  mere  intellect 
alone,  but  one  in  the  forming  of  which  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  imaginative  faculties  were  at  work. 
To  take  only  one  example — this,  however,  from 
Gothic  art,  which  naturally  yields  the  most  re- 
markable— what  exquisite  poetry  in  the  name 
of  '  the  rose  window,'  or  better  still,  '  the  rose,' 
given  to  the  rich  circular  aperture  of  stained 
glass,  with  its  leaf-like  compartments,  in  the 
transepts  of  a  Gothic  cathedral !  Here  indeed 
we  may  note  an  exception  from  that  which 
usually  finds  place ;  for  usually  art  borrows 
beauty  from  nature,  and  very  faintly,  if  at  all, 
reflects  back  beauty  upon  her.  In  this  pre- 
sent instance,  however,  art  is  so  beautiful,  has 
reached  so  glorious  and  perfect  a  development, 
that  if  the  associations  which  the  rose  supplies 
lend  to  that  window  some  hues  of  beauty  and  a 
glory  which  otherwise  it  would  not  have,  the 
latter  abundantly  repays  the  obligation  ;  and 
even  the  rose  itself  may  become  lovelier  still, 
associated  with  those  shapes  of  grace,  those  rich 
gorgeous  tints,  and  all  the  religious  symbolism 
of  that  in  art  which  has  borrowed  and  bears  its 
name.  After  this  it  were  little  to  note  the  ima- 
gination, although  that  was  most  real,  which 
dictated  the  term  '  flamboyant '  to  express  the 
wavy  flame-like  outline,  which,  at  a  particular 
period  of  art,  the  tracery  in  the  Gothic  window 
assumed. 

1  Godsacre,'   or   '  Godsfield,'  is  the  German 


70  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

name  for  a  burial-ground,  and  once  was  our  own, 
though  we  unfortunately  have  nearly,  if  not 
quite,  let  it  go.  What  a  hope  full  of  immortality 
docs  this  little  word  proclaim  !  how  rich  is  it  in 
all  the  highest  elements  of  poetry,  and  of  poetry 
in  its  noblest  alliance,  that  is,  in  its  alliance  with 
faith — able  as  it  is  to  cause  all  loathsome  images 
of  death  and  decay  to  disappear,  not  denying 
them,  but  suspending,  losing,  absorbing  them 
in  the  sublimer  thought  of  the  victory  over  death, 
of  that  harvest  of  life  which  God  shall  one  day 
so  gloriously  reap  even  there  where  now  seems 
the  very  triumphing  place  of  death.  Many  will 
not  need  to  be  reminded  how  fine  a  poem  in 
Longfellow's  hands  unfolds  itself  out  of  this 
word. 

Lastly  let  me  note  the  pathos  of  poetry  which 
lies  often  in  the  mere  tracing  of  the  succession  of 
changes  in  meaning  which  certain  words  have 
undergone.  Thus  '  elend  '  in  German,  a  beautiful 
word,  now  signifies  wretchedness,  but  at  first  it 
signified  exile  or  banishment.*  The  sense  of  this 
separation  from  the  native  land  and  from  all 
home  delights,  as  being  the  woe  of  all  woes,  the 

•  [On  this  word  there  is  an  interesting  discussion  in 
Weigand's  Etym.  Diet.,  and  compare  Pott,  Etym.  Forsch. 
i.  302.  Ellinge,  an  English  provincial  word  of  infinite 
pathos,  still  common  in  the  south  of  England,  and  signi- 
fying at  once  lonely  and  sad,  is  not  connected,  as  has 
been  sometimes  supposed,  with  the  German  elend,  but 
represents  Anglo-Saxon  d-lenge,  protracted,  tedious  ;  see 
the  New  English  Dictionary  (s.v.  alange).] 


it  Man  a  born  Poet.  7 1 

crown  of  all  sorrows,  little  by  little  so  penetrated 
the  word,  that  what  at  first  expressed  only  one 
form  of  misery,  has  ended  by  signifying  all.  It 
is  not  a  little  notable,  as  showing  the  same  feel- 
ing elsewhere  at  work,  that  '  essil '  (  =  exilium) 
in  old  French  signified,  not  only  banishment, 
but  ruin,  destruction,  misery.  In  the  same 
manner  voarifios,  meaning  at  first  no  more  than 
having  to  do  with  a  return,  comes  in  the  end 
to  signify  almost  anything  which  is  favourable 
and  auspicious. 

Let  us  then  acknowledge  man  a  born  poet ; 
if  not  every  man  himself  a  '  maker,'  yet  every 
one  able  to  rejoice  in  what  others  have  made, 
adopting  it  freely,  moving  gladly  in  it  as  his 
own  most  congenial  element  and  sphere.  For 
indeed,  as  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  as 
little  is  he  content  to  find  in  language  merely 
the  instrument  which  shall  enable  him  to  buy 
and  sell  and  get  gain,  or  otherwise  make  pro- 
vision for  the  lower  necessities  of  his  animal 
life.  He  demands  to  find  in  it  as  well  what  shall 
stand  in  a  real  relation  and  correspondence  to 
the  higher  faculties  of  his  being,  shall  feed, 
nourish,  and  sustain  these,  shall  stir  him  with 
images  of  beauty  and  suggestions  of  greatness. 
Neither  here  nor  anywhere  else  could  he  become 
the  mere  utilitarian,  even  if  he  would.  Despite 
his  utmost  efforts,  were  he  so  far  at  enmity  with 
his  own  good  as  to  put  them  forth,  he  could 
not  succeed  in  exhausting  his  language  of  the 


72  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  lect. 

poetical  element  with  which  it  is  penetrated 
through  and  through  ;  he  could  not  succeed  in 
stripping  it  of  blossom,  flower,  and  fruit,  and 
leaving  it  nothing  but  a  bare  and  naked  stem. 
He  may  fancy  for  a  moment  that  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  this ;  but  it  will  only  need  for 
him  to  become  a  little  better  philologer,  to  go  a 
little  deeper  into  the  story  of  the  words  which 
he  is  using,  and  he  will  discover  that  he  is  as 
remote  as  ever  from  such  an  unhappy  consum- 
mation, from  so  disastrous  a  success. 

For  ourselves,  let  us  desire  and  attempt 
nothing  of  the  kind.  Our  life  is  not  in  other 
ways  so  full  of  imagination  and  poetry  that  we 
need  give  any  diligence  to  empty  it  of  that 
which  it  may  possess  of  these.  It  will  always 
have  for  us  all  enough  of  dull  and  prosaic  and 
commonplace.  What  profit  can  there  be  in 
seeking  to  extend  the  region  of  these  ?  Profit 
there  will  be  none,  but  on  the  contrary  in- 
finite loss.  It  is  stagnant  waters  which  corrupt 
themselves  ;  not  those  in  agitation  and  on  which 
the  winds  are  freely  blowing.  Words  of  passion 
and  imagination  are,  as  one  so  grandly  called 
them  of  old, '  winds  of  the  soul '  {^rvj(f)s  avsfxou),  to 
keep  it  in  healthful  motion  and  agitation,  to  lift 
it  upward  and  to  drive  it  onward,  to  preserve  it 
from  that  unwholesome  stagnation  which  con- 
stitutes the  fatal  preparedness  for  so  many  other 
and  worse  evils. 


m.  The  Witness  of  Language.  73 


LECTURE  III. 
ON   THE  MORALITY  IN   WORDS. 

IS  man  of  a  divine  birth  and  of  the  stock  of 
heaven  ?  coming  from  God,  and,  when  he 
fulfils  the  law  of  his  being,  and  the  intention  of 
his  creation,  returning  to  Him  again  ?  We  need 
no  more  than  the  words  he  speaks  to  prove  it ; 
so  much  is  there  in  them  which  could  never  have 
existed  on  any  other  supposition.  How  else 
could  all  those  words  which  testify  of  his  rela- 
tion to  God,  and  of  his  consciousness  of  this 
relation,  and  which  ground  themselves  thereon, 
have  found  their  way  into  his  language,  being 
as  that  is  the  veritable  transcript  of  his  inner- 
most life,  the  genuine  utterance  of  the  faith  and 
hope  which  is  in  him  ?  In  what  other  way  can 
we  explain  that  vast  and  preponderating  weight 
thrown  into  the  scale  of  goodness  and  truth, 
which,  despite  of  all  in  the  other  scale,  we  must 
thankfully  acknowledge  that  his  language  never 
is  without  ?  How  else  shall  we  account  for  that 
sympathy  with  the  right,  that  testimony  against 
the  wrong,  which,  despite  of  all  aberrations  and 
perversions,  is  yet  the  prevailing  ground-tone 
of  all  ? 


74  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lkct. 

But  has  man  fallen,  and  deeply  fallen,  from 
the  heights  of  his  original  creation  ?  We  need 
no  more  than  his  language  to  prove  it.  Like 
everything  else  about  him,  it  bears  at  once  the 
stamp  of  his  greatness  and  of  his  degradation, 
of  his  glory  and  of  his  shame.  What  dark  and 
sombre  threads  he  must  have  woven  into  the 
tissue  of  his  life,  before  we  could  trace  those 
threads  of  darkness  which  run  through  the  tissue 
of  his  language  !  What  facts  of  wickedness  and 
woe  must  have  existed  in  the  one,  ere  such  words 
could  exist  to  designate  these  as  are  found  in 
the  other  !  There  have  never  wanted  those  who 
would  make  light  of  the  moral  hurts  which  man 
has  inflicted  on  himself,  of  the  sickness  with 
which  he  is  sick ;  who  would  persuade  them- 
selves and  others  that  moralists  and  divines,  if 
they  have  not  quite  invented,  have  yet  enor- 
mously exaggerated,  these.  But  are  statements 
of  the  depth  of  his  fall,  the  malignity  of  the 
disease  with  which  he  is  sick,  found  only  in 
Scripture  aad  in  sermons  ?  Are  those  who 
bring  forward  these  statements  libellers  of 
human  nature  ?  Or  are  not  mournful  corro- 
borations of  the  truth  of  these  assertions  im- 
printed deeply  upon  every  province  of  man's 
natural  and  spiritual  life,  and  on  none  more 
deeply  than  on  his  language  ?  It  needs  but 
to  open  a  dictionary,  and  to  cast  our  eye 
thoughtfully  down  a  few  columns,  and  we 
shall  find  abundant  confirmation  of  this  sadder 


in.  Records  of  Sin  in  Language.         75 

and  sterner  estimate  of  man's  moral  and 
spiritual  condition.  How  else  shall  we  ex- 
plain this  long  catalogue  of  words,  having 
all  to  do  with  sin  or  with  sorrow,  or  with 
both  ?  How  came  they  there  ?  We  may  be 
quite  sure  that  they  were  not  invented  with- 
out being  needed,  and  they  have  each  a  corre- 
lative in  the  world  of  realities.  I  open  the  first 
letter  of  the  alphabet  ;  what  means  this  '  Ah,' 
this  '  Alas,'  these  deep  and  long-drawn  sighs  of 
humanity,  which  at  once  encounter  me  there  ? 
And  then  presently  there  meet  me  such  words 
as  these,  '  Affliction,'  '  Agony,'  «  Anguish,'  '  As- 
sassin,' '  Atheist,'  'Avarice,'  and  a  hundred  more 
— words,  you  will  observe,  not  laid  up  in  the 
recesses  of  the  language,  to  be  drawn  forth  on 
rare  occasions,  but  many  of  them  such  as  must 
be  continually  on  the  lips  of  men.  And  indeed, 
in  the  matter  of  abundance,  it  is  sad  to  note 
how  much  richer  our  vocabularies  are  in  words 
that  set  forth  sins,  than  in  those  that  set  forth 
graces.  When  St.  Paul  (Gal.  v.  19-23)  would 
range  these  over  against  those,  'the  works  of  the 
flesh  '  against  '  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,'  those  are 
seventeen,  these  only  nine ;  and  where  do  we 
find  in  Scripture  such  lists  of  graces,  as  we  do  at 
2  Tim.  iii.  2,  Rom.  i.  29-31,  of  their  contraries  ?  * 

*  Of  these  last  the  most  exhaustive  collection  which  I 
know  is  in  Philo,  De  Merced.  Meret.  §  4.  There  are  here 
one  hundred  and  forty-six  epithets  brought  together,  each 
of  them  indicating  a  sinful  moral  habit  of  mind.     It  was 


7  6  0?i  the  Morality  in  Words,        user. 

Nor  can  I  help  noting,  in  the  oversight  and 
muster  from  this  point  of  view  of  the  words 
which  constitute  a  language,  the  manner  in 
which  its  utmost  resources  have  been  taxed  to 
express  the  infinite  varieties,  now  of  human  suf- 
fering, now  of  human  sin.  Thus,  what  a  fearful 
thing  is  it  that  any  language  should  possess  a 
word  to  express  the  pleasure  which  men  feel  at 
the  calamities  of  others  ;  for  the  existence  of  the 
word  bears  testimony  to  the  existence  of  the 
thing.  And  yet  such  in  more  languages  than 
one  may  be  found.*  Nor  are  there  wanting,  I 
suppose,  in  any  language,  words  which  are  the 
mournful  record  of  the  strange  wickednesses 
which  the  genius  of  man,  so  fertile  in  evil,  has 
invented.  What  whole  processes  of  cruelty  are 
sometimes  wrapped  up  in  a  single  word  !  Thus 
I  have  not  travelled  down  the  first  column  of  an 
Italian  dictionary  before  I  light  upon  the  verb 
'abbacinare,'  meaning  to  deprive  of  sight  by 
holding  a  red-hot  metal  basin  close  to  the  eye- 
balls. Travelling  a  little  further  in  a  Greek 
lexicon,  I  should  reach  aKpwT^pid^zLv,  to  mutilate 
by  cutting  off  all  the  extremities,  as  hands,  feet, 

not  without  reason  that  Aristotle  wrote  :  *  It  Is  possible  to 
err  in  many  ways,  for  evil  belongs  to  the  infinite  ;  but  to 
do  right  is  possible  only  in  one  way'  {Ethic.  Nic.  ii.  6.  14). 
*  In  the  Greek,  «7rt^atpfKa/cta,  in  the  German,  'scha- 
denfreude.' Cicero  so  strongly  feels  the  want  of  such  a 
word,  that  he  gives  to  '  malevolentia'  the  significance, 
'  voluptas  ex  malo  alterius,'  which  lies  not  of  necessity 
in  it. 


in.  Degeneration  of  Words.  77 

nose,  ears ;  or  take  our  English  '  to  ganch.' 
And  our  dictionaries,  while  they  tell  us  much, 
cannot  tell  us  all.  How  shamefully  rich  is 
everywhere  the  language  of  the  vulgar  in  words 
and  phrases  which,  seldom  allowed  to  find  their 
way  into  books,  yet  live  as  a  sinful  oral  tradition 
on  the  lips  of  men,  for  the  setting  forth  of  things 
unholy  and  impure.  And  of  these  words,  as  no 
less  of  those  dealing  with  the  kindred  sins  of 
revelling  and  excess,  how  many  set  the  evil  forth 
with  an  evident  sympathy  and  approbation  of 
it,  and  as  themselves  taking  part  with  the  sin 
against  Him  who  has  forbidden  it  under  pain  of 
his  highest  displeasure.  How  much  ability, 
how  much  wit,  yes,  and  how  much  imagination 
must  have  stood  in  the  service  of  sin,  before  it 
could  possess  a  nomenclature  so  rich,  so  varied, 
and  often  so  heaven-defying,  as  that  which  it 
actually  owns. 

Then  further  I  would  bid  you  to  note  the 
many  words  which  men  have  dragged  downward 
with  themselves,  and  made  more  or  less  partakers 
of  their  own  fall.  Having  once  an  honourable 
meaning,  they  have  yet  with  the  deterioration 
and  degeneration  of  those  that  used  them,  or  of 
those  about  whom  they  were  used,  deteriorated 
and  degenerated  too.  How  many,  harmless 
once,  have  assumed  a  harmful  as  their  secondary 
meaning  ;  how  many  worthy  have  acquired  an 
unworthy.  Thus  '  knave  '  meant  once  no  more 
than  lad  (nor  does  '  knabe  '  now  in  German  mean 


78         On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lkct. 

more)  ;  '  villain  '  than  peasant ;  a  'boor'  was  a 
farmer,  a  'varlct'  a  serving-man,  which  meaning 
still  survives  in  'valet,'  the  other  form  of  this 
word  ;*  a  'menial  'was  one  of  the  household  ;  a 
'  paramour '  was  a  lover,  an  honourable  one  it 
might  be  ;  a  '  leman  '  in  like  manner  might  be 
a  lover,  and  be  used  of  either  sex  in  a  good 
sense  ;  a  '  beldam '  was  a  fair  lady,  and  is  used 
in  this  sense  by  Spenser;!  a  'minion'  was  a 
favourite  (man  in   Sylvester  is  '  God's    dearest 
minion  ') ;  a  'pedant'  in  the  Italian  from  which 
we  borrowed  the  word,  and  for  a  while  too  with 
ourselves,  was  simply  a  tutor;  a  'proser'  was 
one  who  wrote  in  prose ;  an  '  adventurer '  one 
who  set  before  himself  perilous,  but  very  often 
noble  ventures,  what  the  Germans  call  a  gliicks- 
ritter  ;  a  '  swindler,'  in  the  German  from  which 
we   got    it,   one   who   entered    into    dangerous 
mercantile  speculations,  without  implying  that 
this  was  done  with  any   intention  to   defraud 
others.     Christ,  according  to  Bishop  Hall,  was 
the  '  ringleader  '  of  our  salvation.    '  Time-server ' 
two  hundred  years  ago  quite  as  often  designated 
one  in  an  honourable  as  in  a  dishonourable  sense 
'  serving  the  time.'  %     '  Conceits  '  had  once  no- 
thing conceited  in  them.     An  'officious'  man 


*  Yet  this  itself  was  an  immense  fall  for  the  word  (see 
Ampere,  La  Langue  Frangaise,  p.  219,  and  Littre',  Diet 
de  la  Langue  Francaise,  preface,  p.  xxv.). 

t  F.  Q.  iii.  2.  43. 

X  See  in  proof  Fuller,  Holy  State,  b.  iii.  c.  19. 


III. 


Tinsel.  79 


was  one  prompt  in  offices  of  kindness,  and  not, 
as  now,  an  uninvited  meddler  in  things  that 
concern  him  not ;  something  indeed  of  the  older 
meaning  still  survives  in  the  diplomatic  use  of 
the  word. 

'  Demure '  conveyed  no  hint,  as  it  does  now, 
of  an  overdoing  of  the  outward  demonstrations 
of  modesty ;  a  '  leer '  was  once  a  look  with 
nothing  amiss  in  it  {Piers  Plowman).  '  Daft ' 
was  modest  or  retiring  ;  '  orgies '  were  religious 
ceremonies  ;  the  Blessed  Virgin  speaks  of  herself 
in  an  early  poem  as  '  God's  wench.'  In  '  crafty ' 
and  '  cunning '  no  crooked  wisdom  was  implied, 
but  only  knowledge  and  skill ;  '  craft,'  indeed, 
still  retains  very  often  its  more  honourable  use, 
a  man's  '  craft '  being  his  skill,  and  then  the 
trade  in  which  he  is  skilled.  '  Artful '  was 
skilful,  and  not  tricky  as  now.*  Could  the 
Magdalen  have  ever  bequeathed  us  '  maudlin  ' 
in  its  present  contemptuous  application,  if  the 
tears  of  penitential  sorrow  had  been  held  in 
due  honour  by  the  world  ?  '  Tinsel,'  the  French 
'  etincelle,'  meant  once  anything  that  sparkled 
or  glistened;  thus,  'cloth  of  tinsel'  would  be 
cloth  inwrought  with  silver  and  gold  ;  but  the 
sad  experience  that  '  all  is  not  gold  that  glitters, 


*  Not  otherwise  '  leichtsinnig'  in  German  meant 
cheerful  once  ;  it  is  frivolous  now ;  while  in  French  a 
'  rapporteur '  is  now  a  bringer  back  of  malicious  reports, 
the  malicious  having  littie  by  little  found  its  way  into  the 
word. 


8o  On  the  Morality  in  Words.        "«•. 

that  much  showing  fair  to  the  eye  is  worthless 
in  reality,  has  caused  that  by  '  tinsel,'  literal 
or  figurative,  we  ever  mean  now  that  which  has 
no  realities  of  sterling  worth  underlying  the 
specious  shows  which  it  makes.  '  Specious ' 
itself,  let  me  note,  meant  beautiful  at  one  time, 
and  not,  as  now,  presenting  a  deceitful  appear- 
ance of  beauty.  '  Tawdry ,'  an  epithet  applied 
once  to  lace  or  other  finery  bought  at  the  fair  of 
St.  Avvdrey  or  St.  Etheldreda,  has  run  through 
the  same  course :  it  at  one  time  conveyed  no 
suggestion  of  mean  finery  or  shabby  splendour, 
as  now  it  does.  '  Voluble '  was  an  epithet  which 
had  nothing  of  slight  in  it,  but  meant  what 
1  fluent '  means  now  ;  '  dapper  '  was  what  in 
German  '  tapfer '  is ;  not  so  much  neat  and 
spruce  as  brave  and  bold ;  '  plausible '  was 
worthy  of  applause ;  '  pert '  is  now  brisk  and 
lively,  but  with  a  very  distinct  subaudition, 
which  once  it  had  not,  of  sauciness  as  well ; 
'  lewd  '  meant  no  more  than  unlearned,  as  the 
lay  or  common  people  might  be  supposed  to 
be.*      '  To  carp '  is  in  Chaucer's  language   no 

*  Having  in  mind  what  'dime,'  connected  with  '  die- 
nen,'  '  dienst,'  commonly  means  now  in  German,  one 
almost  shrinks  from  mentioning  that  it  was  once  a  name 
of  honour  which  could  be  and  was  used  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  Mary  (see  Grimm,  Worterbiich,  s.  v.).  'Schalk' 
in  like  manner  had  no  evil  subaudition  in  it  at  the  first ; 
nor  did  it  ever  obtain  such  during  the  time  that  it  survived 
in  English  ;  thus  in  Sir  Gawayne  and  the  Green  Knight^ 
the   peerless   Gawayne   is   himself  on   more   than    one 


in.         Resent,  Retaliate,  Animosity.         81 

more  than  to  converse ;  '  to  mouth '  in  Piers 
Plowman  is  simply  to  speak ;  '  to  garble '  was 
once  to  sift  and  pick  out  the  best  ;  it  is  now  to 
select  and  put  forward  as  a  fair  specimen  the 
worst. 

This  same  deterioration  through  use  may  be 
traced  in  the  verb  'to  resent.'  Barrow  could 
speak  of  the  good  man  as  a  faithful  '  resenter  ' 
and  requiter  of  benefits,  of  the  duty  of  testifying 
an  affectionate  '  resentment '  of  our  obligations 
to  God.  But  the  memory  of  benefits  fades  from 
us  so  much  more  quickly  than  that  of  injuries ; 
we  remember  and  revolve  in  our  minds  so  much 
more  predominantly  the  wrongs,  real  or  imagi- 
nary, men  have  done  us,  than  the  favours  we 
owe  them,  that  '  resentment '  has  come  in  our 
modern  English  to  be  confined  exclusively  to 
that  deep  reflective  displeasure  which  men  en- 
tertain against  those  that  have  done,  or  whom 
they  fancy  to  have  done,  them  a  wrong.  And 
this  explains  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  we  do 
not  speak  of  the  '  retaliation '  of  benefits  at  all 
so  often  as  the  '  retaliation  '  of  injuries.  '  To 
retaliate'  signifies  no  more  than  to  render 
again  as  much  as  we  have  received  ;  but  this  is 
so  much  seldomer  practised  in  the  matter  of 
benefits  than  of  wrongs,  that  '  retaliation,'  though 
not  wholly  strange  in  this  worthier  sense,  has 

occasion  a  'schalk'  (424,  1776).  The  word  survives  in 
the  last  syllable  of  '  seneschal,'  and  indeed  of  '  marshal ' 
as  welL 

G 


82  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

yet,  when  so  employed,  an  unusual  sound  in 
our  ears.  '  To  retaliate '  kindnesses  is  a  lan- 
guage which  would  not  now  be  intelligible  to 
all.  'Animosity,'  as  originally  employed  in  that 
later  Latin  which  gave  it  birth,  was  spiritcdness  ; 
men  would  speak  of  the  '  animosity '  or  fiery 
courage  of  a  horse.  In  our  early  English  it 
meant  nothing  more ;  a  divine  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  speaks  of  '  due  Christian  ani- 
mosity.' Activity  and  vigour  are  still  implied 
in  the  word  ;  but  now  only  as  displayed  in 
enmity  and  hate.  There  is  a  Spanish  proverb 
which  says,  '  One  foe  is  too  many ;  a  hundred 
friends  are  too  few.'  The  proverb  and  the  course 
which  this  word  '  animosity  '  has  travelled  may 
be  made  mutually  to  illustrate  one  another.* 

How  mournful  a  witness  for  the  hard  and  un- 
righteous judgments  we  habitually  form  of  one 
another  lies  in  the  word  '  prejudice.'  It  is  itself 
absolutely  neutral,  meaning  no  more  than  a 
judgment  formed  beforehand  ;  which  judgment 
may  be  favourable,  or  may  be  otherwise.  Yet 
so  predominantly  do  we  form  harsh  unfavourable 
judgments  of  others  before  knowledge  and  ex- 
perience, that  a  '  prejudice,'  or  judgment  before 
knowledge  and  not  grounded  on  evidence,  is 
almost  always  taken  in  an  ill  sense  ;  '  prejudicial ' 


*  For  quotations  from  our  earlier  authors  in  proof  of 
many  of  the  assertions  made  in  the  few  last  pages,  see 
my  Select  Glossary  of  English  Words  used  formerly  in 
tenses  different  from  their -present ',  [7th  edit.  1890]. 


m. 


Retract.  &3 


having  actually  acquired  mischievous  or  injurious 
for  its  secondary  meaning. 

As  these  words  bear  testimony  to  the  sin  of 
man,  so  others  to  his  infirmity,  to  the  limitation 
of  human  faculties  and  human  knowledge,  to 
the  truth  of  the  proverb,  that  '  to  err  is  human.' 
Thus  '  to  retract '  means  properly  no  more  than 
to  handle  again,   to   reconsider.     And    yet,   so 
certain  are  we  to  find  in  a  subject  which  we  re- 
consider, or  handle  a  second  time,  that  which 
was   at   first   rashly,   imperfectly,   inaccurately, 
stated,  which   needs   therefore  to  be  amended, 
modified,  or  withdrawn,  that  '  to  retract '  could 
not  tarry  long  in  its  primary  meaning  of  recon- 
sidering ;  but  has  come  to  signify  to  withdraw. 
Thus  the  greatest  Father  of  the  Latin  Church, 
wishing  toward  the  close  of  his  life  to  amend  what- 
ever he  might  then  perceive  in  his  various  pub- 
lished works  incautiously  or  incorrectly  stated, 
gave  to  the  book  in  which  he  carried  out  this  in- 
tention (for  authors  had  then  no  such  opportu- 
nities as  later  editions  afford  us  now),  this  very 
name  of  ' Retractations',  being  literally  '  rehand- 
lings,'  but  in  fact,  as  will  be  plain  to  any  one 
turning   to  the  work,  withdrawings  of  various 
statements  by  which  he  was  no  longer  prepared 
to  abide. 

But  urging,  as  I  just  now  did,  the  degeneration 

of  words,  I  should  seriously  err,  if  1  failed  to 

remind  you  that  a  parallel  process  of  purifying 

a  2 


84  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

and  ennobling  has  also  been  going  forward,  most 
of  all  through  the  influences  of  a  Divine  faith 
working  in  the  world.  This,  as  it  has  turned 
wen  from  evil  to  good,  or  has  lifted  them  from  a 
lower  earthly  goodness  to  a  higher  heavenly,  so 
has  it  in  like  manner  elevated,  purified,  and  en- 
nobled a  multitude  of  the  words  which  they 
employ,  until  these,  which  once  expressed  only 
an  earthly  good,  express  now  a  heavenly.  The 
Gospel  of  Christ,  as  it  is  the  redemption  of  man, 
so  is  it  in  a  multitude  of  instances  the  redemp- 
tion of  his  word,  freeing  it  from  the  bondage  of 
corruption,  that  it  should  no  longer  be  subject  to 
vanity,  nor  stand  any  more  in  the  service  of  sin 
or  of  the  world,  but  in  the  service  of  God  and  of 
his  truth.  Thus  the  Greek  had  a  word  for 
'  humility ' ;  but  for  him  this  humility  meant — 
that  is,  with  rare  exceptions — meanness  of  spirit. 
He  who  brought  in  the  Christian  grace  of  hu- 
mility, did  in  so  doing  rescue  the  term  which 
expressed  it  for  nobler  uses  and  a  far  higher 
dignity  than  hitherto  it  had  attained.  There 
were  '  angels '  before  heaven  had  been  opened, 
but  these  only  earthly  messengers  ;  '  martyrs ' 
also,  or  witnesses,  but  these  not  unto  blood,  nor 
yet  for  God's  highest  truth  ;  '  apostles,'  but  sent 
of  men  ;  '  evangels,'  but  these  good  tidings  of 
this  world,  and  not  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ; 
'  advocates,'  but  not '  with  the  Father.'  '  Paradise ' 
was  a  word  common  in  slightly  different  forms  to 
almost  all  the  nations  of  the  East ;  but  it  was 


m.  Regeneration. 


for  them  only  some  royal  park  or  garden  of  de- 
lights ;  till  for  the  Jew  it  was  exalted  to  signify 
the  mysterious  abode  of  our  first  parents  ;  while 
higher  honours  awaited  it  still,  when  on  the  lips 
of  the  Lord,  it  signified  the  blissful  waiting-place 
of  faithful  departed  souls  (Luke  xxiii.  43)  ;  yea, 
the  heavenly  blessedness  itself  (Rev.  ii.  7).  A 
'  regeneration,'  or  palingenesy,  was  not  unknown 
to  the  Greeks ;  they  could  speak  of  the  earth's 
'  regeneration  '  in  spring-time,  of  recollection  as 
the  •  regeneration  '  of  knowledge  ;  the  Jewish  his- 
torian could  describe  the  return  of  his  country- 
men from  the  Babylonian  Captivity,  and  their 
re-establishment  in  their  own  land,  as  the  '  re- 
generation '  of  the  Jewish  State.  But  still  the 
word,  whether  as  employed  by  Jew  or  Greek, 
was  a  long  way  off  from  that  honour  reserved 
for  it  in  the  Christian  dispensation — namely,  that 
it  should  be  the  vehicle  of  one  of  the  most  blessed 
mysteries  of  the  faith.*  And  many  other  words 
in  like  manner  there  are,  '  fetched  from  the  very 
dregs  of  paganism,'  as  Sanderson  has  it  (he 
instances  the  Latin  '  sacrament,'  the  Greek 
'  mystery '),  which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  not  refused 
to  employ  for  the  setting  forth  of  the  glorious  facts 
of  our  redemption  ;  and,  reversing  the  impious 
deed  of  Belshazzar,  who  profaned  the  sacred  ves- 
sels of  God's  house  to  sinful  and  idolatrous  uses 
(Dan.  v.  2),  has  consecrated  the  very  idol-vessela 
of  Babylon  to  the  service  of  the  sanctuary. 

*  See  my  Synonyms  of  the  N.T.  §  18. 


86  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  contemplate  some  of 
the  attestations  to  God's  truth,  and  then  some  of 
the  playings  into  the  hands  of  the  devil's  false- 
hood, which  lurk  in  words.  And  first,  the  at- 
testations to  God's  truth,  the  fallings  in  of  our 
words  with  his  unchangeable  Word  ;  for  these, 
as  the  true  uses  of  the  word,  while  the  other  are 
only  its  abuses,  have  a  prior  claim  to  be  con- 
sidered. 

Thus,  some  modern  '  false  prophets,'  willing 
to  explain  away  all  such  phenomena  of  the  world 
around  us  as  declare  man  to  be  a  sinner,  and 
lying  under  the  consequences  of  sin,  would  fain 
have  them  to  believe  that  pain  is  only  a  sub- 
ordinate kind  of  pleasure,  or,  at  worst,  a  sort  of 
needful  hedge  and  guardian  of  pleasure.  But  a 
deeper  feeling  in  the  universal  heart  of  man  bears 
witness  to  quite  another  explanation  of  the 
existence  of  pain  in  the  present  economy  of  the 
world — namely,  that  it  is  the  correlative  of  sin, 
that  it  is  punishment ;  and  to  this  the  word  '  pain,' 
so  closely  connected  with  'poena,'  bears  witness.* 
Pain  is  punishment ;  for  so  the  word,  and  so 
the  conscience  of  every  one  that  is  suffering  it, 
declares.  Some  will  not  hear  of  great  pestilences 
being  scourges  of  the  sins  of  men  ;  and  if  only 
they  can  find  out  the  immediate,  imagine  that 
they  have  found  out  the  ultimate,  causes  of 
these  ;  while  yet  they  have  only  to  speak  of  a 

*  [Our  word  pain  is  actually  the  same  word  as  the 
Latin  pcena,  coming  to  us  through  the  French  pane.] 


tu. 


Miser.  8  7 


'plague'  and  they  implicitly  avouch  the  very 
truth  which  they  have  set  themselves  to  deny  ; 
for  a  '  plague,'  what  is  it  but  a  stroke  ;  so  called, 
because  that  universal  conscience  of  men  which 
is  never  at  fault,  has  felt  and  in  this  way  con- 
fessed it  to  be  such  ?  For  here,  as  in  so  many 
other  cases,  that  proverb  stands  fast,  'Vox 
populi,  vox  Dei '  ;  and  may  be  admitted  to  the 
full  ;  that  is,  if  only  we  keep  in  mind  that  this 
'  people'  is  not  the  populace  either  in  high  place 
or  in  low  ;  and  this  '  voice  of  the  people  '  no 
momentary  outcry,  but  the  consenting  testimony 
of  the  good  and  wise,  of  those  neither  brutalized 
by  ignorance,  nor  corrupted  by  a  false  cultiva- 
tion, in  many  places  and  in  various  times. 

To  one  who  admits  the  truth  of  this  proverb 
it  will  be  nothing  strange  that  men  should  have 
agreed  to  call  him  a  '  miser  '  or  miserable,  who 
eagerly  scrapes  together  and  painfully  hoards 
the  mammon  of  this  world.  Here  too  the  moral 
instinct  lying  deep  in  all  hearts  has  borne  testi- 
mony to  the  tormenting  nature  of  this  vice,  to 
the  gnawing  pains  with  which  even  in  this  pre- 
sent time  it  punishes  its  votaries,  to  the  enmity 
which  there  is  between  it  and  all  joy  ;  and  the 
man  who  enslaves  himself  to  his  money  is  pro- 
claimed in  our  very  language  to  be  a  '  miser,'  or 
miserable  man.* 

*  'Misery'  does  not  any  longer  signify  avarice,  nor 
•miserable'  avaricious;  but  these  meanings  they  once 
possessed  (see  my  Select  Glossary ,  s.  vv.).     In  them  men 


88  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         l«ct. 

Other  words  bear  testimony  to  great  moral 
truths.  St.  James  has,  I  doubt  not,  been  often 
charged  with  exaggeration  for  saying,  '  Whoso- 
ever shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in 
one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all '  (ii.  10).  The  charge 
is  an  unjust  one.  The  Romans  with  their  '  in- 
tegritas  '  said  as  much  ;  we  too  say  the  same  who 
have  adopted  '  integrity  '  as  a  part  of  our  ethical 
language.  For  what  is  '  integrity '  but  entire- 
ness  ;  the  '  integrity '  of  the  body  being,  as 
Cicero  explains  it,  the  full  possession  and  the 
perfect  soundness  of  all  its  members  ;  and  moral 
1  integrity,'  though  it  cannot  be  predicated  so 
absolutely  of  any  sinful  child  of  Adam,  is  this 
same  entireness  or  completeness  transferred  to 
things  higher.  '  Integrity '  was  exactly  that 
which  Herod  had  not  attained,  when  at  the 
Baptist's  bidding  he  '  did  many  things  gladly ' 
(Mark  vi.  20),  but  did  not  put  away  his  brother's 
wife  ;  whose  partial  obedience  therefore  profited 
nothing  ;  he  had  dropped  one  link  in  the  golden 
chain  of  obedience,  and  as  a  consequence  the 
whole  chain  fell  to  the  ground. 

It  is  very  noticeable,  and  many  have  noticed, 
that  the  Greek  word  signifying  wickedness 
(irovfjpui)  comes  of  another  signifying  labour 
(jrovos).     How  well  does  this  agree  with  those 


said,  and  in  'miser'  we  still  say,  in  one  word  what  Seneca 
when  he  wrote, — '  Nulla  avaritia  sine  poena  est,  quamvis 
talis  fit  ipsa  pamarum ' — took  a  sentence  to  say. 


til. 


Assent.  So, 


passages  in  Scripture  which  describe  sinners  as 
'  wearying  themselves  to  commit  iniquity,'  as 
labouring  in  the  very  fire  '  ;  '  the  martyrs  of  the 
devil,'  as  South  calls  them,  being  at  more  pains 
to  go  to  hell  than  the  martyrs  of  God  to  go  to 
heaven.  '  St.  Chrysostom's  eloquence,'  as  Bishop 
Sanderson  has  observed,  '  enlarges  itself  and 
triumphs  in  this  argument  more  frequently  than 
in  almost  any  other  ;  and  he  clears  it  often  and 
beyond  all  exception,  both  by  Scripture  and 
reason,  that  the  life  of  a  wicked  or  worldly 
man  is  a  very  drudgery,  infinitely  more  toilsome, 
vexatious,  and  unpleasant  than  a  godly  life  is.'* 
How  deep  an  insight  into  the  failings  of  the 
human  heart  lies  at  the  root  of  many  words ; 
and  if  only  we  would  attend  to  them,  what 
valuable  warnings  many  contain  against  subtle 
temptations  and  sins  !  Thus,  all  of  us  have  felt 
the  temptation  of  seeking  to  please  others  by  an 
unmanly  assenting  to  their  opinion,  even  when 
our  own  independent  convictions  did  not  agree 
with  theirs.  The  existence  of  such  a  tempta- 
tion, and  the  fact  that  too  many  yield  to  it,  are 
both  declared  in  the  Latin  for  a  flatterer — 'assen- 
tator ' — that  is,  '  an  assenter ' ;  one  who  has  not 
courage  to  say  No,  when  a  Yes  is  expected  from 
him  ;  and  quite  independently  of  the  Latin, 
the  German,  in  its  contemptuous  and  precisely 
equivalent  use  of  'Jaherr,'  a  '  yea- Lord,'  warns 


*  Sermons,  London,  1671,  vol.  ii.  p.  244. 


90         On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 


us  in  like  manner  against  all  such  unmanly  com- 
pliances. Let  me  note  that  we  also  once  pos- 
sessed '  assentation '  in  the  sense  of  unworthy 
flattering  lip-assent ;  the  last  example  of  it  in 
our  dictionaries  is  from  Bishop  Hall  :  '  It  is  a 
fearful  presage  of  ruin  when  the  prophets  con- 
spire in  assentation  ; '  but  it  lived  on  to  a  far  later 
day,  being  found  and  exactly  in  the  same  sense 
in  Lord  Chesterfield's  Letters  to  his  son  ;  he 
there  speaks  of  'abject  flattery  and  indiscri- 
minate assentation.'  *  The  word  is  well  worthy 
to  be  revived. 

Again,  how  well  it  is  to  have  that  spirit  of 
depreciation,  that  eagerness  to  find  spots  and 
stains  in  the  characters  of  the  noblest  and  the 
best,  who  would  otherwise  oppress  and  rebuke  us 
with  a  goodness  and  a  greatness  so  immensely 
superior  to  our  own, — met  and  checked  by  a 
word  at  once  so  expressive,  and  so  little  pleasant 
to  take  home  to  ourselves,  as  the  French  '  d<fni- 
greur,'  a  '  blackener.'  This  also  has  fallen  out  of 
use  ;  which  is  a  pity,  seeing  that  the  race  which 
it  designates  is  so  far  from  being  extinct.  Full 
too  of  instruction  and  warning  is  our  present 
employment  of  '  libertine.'  A  '  libertine,'  in 
earlier  use,  was  a  speculative  free-thinker  in 
matters  of  religion  and  in  the  theory  of  morals. 

*  August  io,  1749.  [In  the  New  English  Dictionary 
a  quotation  for  the  word  is  given  as  late  as  1 859.  I.  Taylor, 
in  his  Logic  in  Theology,  p.  265,  says  :  '  A  safer  anchorage 
may  be  found  than  the  shoal  of  mindless  assentation.'] 


III. 


Passion.  9 1 


But  as  by  a  process  which  is  seldom  missed 
tree-thinking  does  and  will  end  in  tree-acting,  he 
who  has  cast  off  one  yoke  also  casting  off  the 
other,  so  a  '  libertine '  came  in  two  or  three 
generations  to  signify  a  profligate,  especially  in 
relation  to  women,  a  licentious  and  debauched 
person.* 

Look  a  little  closely  at  the  word  'passion.' 
We  sometimes  regard  a  '  passionate '  man  as  a 
man  of  strong  will,  and  of  real,  though  un- 
governed,  energy.  But ' passion  '  teaches  us  quite 
another  lesson  ;  for  it,  as  a  very  solemn  use  of 
it  declares,  means  properly  'suffering';  and  a 
'  passionate '  man  is  not  one  who  is  doing  some- 
thing, but  one  suffering  something  to  be  done  to 
him.  When  then  a  man  or  child  is  'in  a  pas- 
sion,' this  is  no  outcoming  in  him  of  a  strong 
will,  of  a  real  energy,  but  the  proof  rather  that, 
for  the  time  at  least,  he  is  altogether  wanting  in 
these ;  he  is  suffering,  not  doing ;  suffering  his 
anger,  or  whatever  evil  temper  it  may  be,  to  lord 
over  him  without  control.  Let  no  one  then 
think  of  'passion  '  as  a  sign  of  strength.  One 
might  with  as  much  justice  conclude  a  man 
strong  because  he  was  often  well  beaten  ;  this 
would  prove  that  a  strong  man  was  putting  forth 
his  strength  on  him,  but  certainly  not  that  he 
was  himself  strong.  The  same  sense  of  '  passion  3 
and  feebleness  going  together,  of  the  first  as  the 
outcome  of  the  second,  lies,  I  may  remark  by 

*  [See  the  author's  Select  Glossary  (s.v.)] 


92  On  the  Morality  in  Words.         uect. 

the  way,  in  the  twofold  use  of  '  impotens  '  in  the 
Latin,  which  meaning  first  weak,  means  then 
violent,  and  then  weak  and  violent  together. 
For  a  long  time  'impotent'  and  'impotence'  in 
English  embodied  the  same  twofold  meaning. 

Or  meditate  on  the  use  of  '  humanitas,'  and 
the  use  (in  Scotland  at  least)  of  the  '  humanities,' 
to  designate  those  studies  which  are  esteemed 
the  fittest  for  training  the  true  humanity  in  every 
man.*  We  have  happily  overlived  in  England 
the  time  when  it  was  still  in  debate  among  us 
whether  education  is  a  good  thing  for  every 
living  soul  or  not ;  the  only  question  which  now 
seriously  divides  Englishmen  being,  in  what 
manner  that  mental  and  moral  training,  which 
is  society's  debt  to  each  one  of  its  members, 
may  be  most  effectually  imparted  to  him.  Were 
it  not  so,  were  there  any  still  found  to  affirm 
that  it  was  good  for  any  man  to  be  left  with 
powers  not  called  out  and  faculties  untrained,  we 
might  appeal  to  this  word  '  humanitas,'  and  the 
use  to  which  the  Roman  put  it,  in  proof  that  he 
at  least  was  not  of  this  mind.  By  '  humanitas ' 
he  intended  the  fullest  and  most  harmonious 
development  of  all  the  truly  human  faculties 
and  powers.  Then,  and  then  only,  man  was 
truly  man,  when  he  received  this  ;  in  so  far  as  he 
did  not  receive  this,  his  'humanity'  was  maimed 

*  [Compare  the  use  of  the  term  Littera  Humaniores 
in  the  University  of  Oxford  to  designate  the  oldest  and 
most  characteristic  of  her  examinations  or  '  Schools.'] 


IIL 


Talent,  Oblige.  93 


and  imperfect  ;  he  fell  short  of  his  ideal,  of  that 
which  he  was  created  to  be. 

In  our  use  of  '  talents,'  as  when  we  say  '  a 
man  of  talents,'  there  is  a  clear  recognition  of 
the  responsibilities  which  go  along  with  the 
possession  of  intellectual  gifts  and  endowments, 
whatever  these  may  be.  We  owe  our  later  use 
of  'talent'  to  the  parable  (Matt.  xxv.  14),  in 
which  more  or  fewer  of  these  are  committed  to 
the  several  servants,  that  they  may  trade  with 
them  in  their  master's  absence,  and  give  account 
of  their  employment  at  his  return.  Men  may 
choose  to  forget  the  ends  for  which  their  '  talents ' 
were  given  them  ;  they  may  count  them  merely 
something  which  they  have  gotten  ;  *  they  may 
turn  them  to  selfish  ends  ;  they  may  glorify 
themselves  in  them,  instead  of  glorifying  the 
Giver ;  they  may  practically  deny  that  they 
were  given  at  all  ;  yet  in  this  word,  till  they  can 
rid  their  vocabulary  of  it,  abides  a  continual 
memento  that  they  were  so  given,  or  rather  lent, 
and  that  each  man  shall  have  to  render  an 
account  of  their  use. 

Again,  in  '  oblige '  and  '  obligation,'  as  when 
we  speak  of  '  being  obliged,'  or  of  having  '  re- 
ceived an  obligation,'  a  moral  truth  is  asserted — 
this  namely,  that  having  received  a  benefit  or  a 
favour  at  the  hands  of  another,  we  are  thereby 

*  An  e£u,  as  the  heathen  did,  not  a  bdyprj^a,  as  the 
Christian  does  ;  see  a  remarkable  passage  in  Bishop 
Andrewes'  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  p.  384. 


94         On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

morally  bound  to  show  ourselves  grateful  for  the 
same.  We  cannot  be  ungrateful  without  deny- 
ing not  merely  a  moral  truth,  but  one  incor- 
porated in  the  very  language  which  we  employ. 
Thus  South,  in  a  sermon,  Of  the  odious  Sin  of 
Ingratitude,  has  well  asked,  '  If  the  conferring 
of  a  kindness  did  not  bind  the  person  upon 
whom  it  was  conferred  to  the  returns  of  grati- 
tude, why,  in  the  universal  dialect  of  the  world, 
are  kindnesses  called  obligations  ? '  * 

Once  more — the  habit  of  calling  a  woman's 
chastity  her  'virtue'  is  significant.  I  will  not 
deny  that  it  may  spring  in  part  from  a  tendency 
which  often  meets  us  in  language,  to  narrow 
the  whole  circle  of  virtues  to  some  one  upon 
which  peculiar  stress  is  laid  ;  |  but  still,  in  select- 
ing this  peculiar  one  as  the  '  virtue '  of  woman, 
there  speaks  out  a  true  sense  that  this  is  indeed 
for  her  the  citadel  of  the  whole  moral  being,  the 
overthrow  of  which  is  the  overthrow  of  all  ;  that 
it  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch,  which  being  with- 
drawn, the  whole  collapses  and  falls. 

Or  consider  all  which  is  witnessed  for  us  in 
*  kind.'  We  speak  of  a  '  kind  '  person,  and  we 
speak  of  man-'  kind,'  and  perhaps,  if  we  think 
about  the  matter  at  all,  fancy  that  we  are  using 
quite  different  words,  or  the  same  words  in  senses 
quite  unconnected.     But  they  are  connected,  and 

*  Sermons,  London,  1737,  vol.  i.  p.  407. 

t  Thus  in  Jewish  Greek  iXe^oavm)  stands  often  for 
SiKaiovivr)  (Deut.  vi.  25  ;  Ps.  cii.  6,  LXX),  or  almsgiving 
for  righteousness. 


nr. 


Prude.  95 


by  closest  bonds  ;  a  '  kind  '  person  is  one  who 
acknowledges  his  kinship  with  other  men,  and 
acts  upon  it ;  confesses  that  he  owes  to  them, 
as  of  one  blood  with  himself,  the  debt  of  love.* 
Beautiful  before,  how  much  more  beautiful  do 
'  kind '  and  '  kindness  '  appear,  when  we  appre- 
hend the  root  out  of  which  they  grow,  and  the 
truth  which  they  embody;  that  they  are  the 
acknowledgment  in  loving  deeds  of  our  kinship 
with  our  brethren  ;  of  the  relationship  which 
exists  between  all  the  members  of  the  human 
family,  and  of  the  obligations  growing  out  of 
the  same. 

But  I  observed  just  now  that  there  are  also 
words  bearing  on  them  the  slime  of  the  serpent's 
trail  ;  uses,  too,  of  words  which  imply  moral 
perversity — not  upon  their  parts  who  employ 
them  now  in  their  acquired  senses,  but  on  theirs 
from  whom  little  by  little  they  received  their 
deflection,  and  were  warped  from  their  original 
rectitude.  A  '  prude '  is  now  a  woman  with 
an  over-done  affectation  of  a  modesty  which 
she  does  not  really  feel,  and  betraying  the  ab- 
sence of  the  substance  by  this  over-preciseness 
and  niceness  about  the  shadow.    Goodness  must 


*  Thus  Hamlet  does  much  more  than  merely  play  on 
words  when  he  calls  his  father's  brother,  who  had  married 
his  mother, '  A  little  more  than  kin,  and  less  than  kind.' 
[For  the  relation  between  kind  (the  adj.)  and  kind 
('  nature,'  the  sb.)  see  Skeat's  Diet.] 


q6         On  the  Morality  in  Words. 


I.KCT. 


have  gone  strangely  out  of  fashion,  the  cor- 
ruption of  manners  must  have  been  profound, 
before  matters  could  have  come  to  this  point. 
1  Prude,'  a  French  word,  means  properly  virtuous 
or  prudent.*  But  where  morals  are  greatly  and 
generally  relaxed,  virtue  is  treated  as  hypo- 
crisy ;  and  thus,  in  a  dissolute  age,  and  one 
incredulous  of  any  inward  purity,  by  the  'prude' 
or  virtuous  woman  is  intended  a  sort  of  female 
Tartuffe,  affecting  a  virtue  which  it  is  taken  for 
granted  none  can  really  possess ;  and  the  word 
abides,  a  proof  of  the  world's  disbelief  in  the 
realities  of  goodness,  of  its  resolution  to  treat 
them  as  hypocrisies  and  deceits. 

Again,  why  should  '  simple  '  be  used  slight- 
ingly, and  '  simpleton  '  more  slightingly  still  ? 
The  '  simple  '  is  one  properly  of  a  single  fold  ;  f 
a  Nathanael,  whom  as  such  Christ  honoured  to 
the  highest  (John  i.  47) ;  and,  indeed,  what 
honour  can  be  higher  than  to  have  nothing 
double  about  us,  to  be  without  duplicities  or 
folds?  Even  the  world,  which  despises  'sim- 
plicity,' does  not  profess  to  admire  '  duplicity,' 
or  double-foldedness.  But  inasmuch  as  it  is  felt 
that  a  man  without  these  folds  will  in  a  world  like 


*  [Compare  F "rench prude,  on  the  etymology  of  which 
see  ScheleiJs  French  Did.,  ed.  3  (1888)]. 

t  [Latin  simplicem  ;  for  Lat.  sim-,  sin-  =  Greek  d  in 
a-nui,  see  Brugmann,  Grundriss,  %  238,  Curtius,  Greek 
Etym.  No.  599.] 


ni. 


Simple,  Silly.  97 


ours  make  himself  a  prey,  and  as  most  men,  if 
obliged  to  choose  between  deceiving  and  being 
deceived,  would  choose  the  former,  it  has  come 
to  pass  that  '  simple,'  which  in  a  kingdom  of 
righteousness  would  be  a  word  of  highest 
honour,  carries  with  it  in  this  world  of  ours 
something  of  contempt.*  Nor  can  we  help 
noting  another  involuntary  testimony  borne  by 
human  language  to  human  sin.  I  mean  this, — 
that  an  idiot,  or  one  otherwise  deficient  in  intel- 
lect, is  called  an  'innocent,'  or  one  who  does  no 
hurt;  this  use  of  'innocent'  assuming  that  to 
do  hurt  and  harm  is  the  chief  employment  to 
which  men  turn  their  intellectual  powers,  that, 
where  they  are  wise,  they  are  oftenest  wise  to  do 
evil. 

Nor  are  these  isolated  examples  of  the  con- 
temptuous use  which  words  expressive  of  good- 
ness gradually  acquire.  Such  meet  us  on  every 
side.  Our  '  silly'  is  the  Old-English  'sa^lig,'  or 
blessed.  We  see  it  in  a  transition  state  in  our 
early  poets,  with  whom  'silly'  is  an  affectionate 
epithet  which  sheep  obtain  for  their  harmless- 
ness.  One  among  our  earliest  calls  the  new- 
born Lord  of  Glory  Himself,  '  this  harmless  silly 


•  *  Schlecht,'  which  in  modern  German  means  bad, 
good  for  nothing,  once  meant  good, — good,  that  is,  in 
the  sense  of  right  or  straight,  but  has  passed  through  the 
same  stages  to  the  meaning  which  it  now  possesses  ; 
•albern'  has  done  the  same  (Max  Miiller,  Science  of  Lan- 
guage, 2nd  series,  p.  274). 

H 


gS  On  the  Alorality  in  Words.         lect. 

babe.'  But  'silly'  has  travelled  on  the  same 
lines  as  '  simple,'  '  innocent,'  and  so  many  other 
words.  The  same  moral  phenomenon  repeats 
itself  continually.  Thus  'sheepish'  in  the  Ormu- 
lum  is  an  epithet  of  honour :  it  is  used  of  one 
who  has  the  mind  of  Him  who  was  led  as  a 
sheep  to  the  slaughter.  At  the  first  promulga- 
tion of  the  Christian  faith,  while  the  name  of  its 
Divine  Founder  was  still  strange  to  the  ears  of 
the  heathen,  they  were  wont,  some  in  ignorance, 
but  more  of  malice,  slightly  to  mispronounce 
this  name,  turning  '  Christus  '  into  '  Chrestus  ' — 
that  is,  the  benevolent  or  benign.  That  these 
last  meant  no  honour  thereby  to  the  Lord  of 
Life,  but  the  contrary,  is  certain  ;  this  word,  like 
'  silly,'  '  innocent,'  '  simple,'  having  already  con- 
tracted a  slight  tinge  of  contempt,  without  which 
there  would  have  been  no  inducement  to  fasten 
it  on  the  Saviour.  The  French  have  their 
1  bonhomie  '  with  the  same  undertone  of  con- 
tempt, the  Greeks  their  Evydeia.  Lady  Shiel 
tells  us  of  the  modern  Persians,  '  They  have 
odd  names  for  describing  the  moral  qualities  ; 
"  Sedakat  "  means  sincerity,  honesty,  candour  ; 
but  when  a  man  is  said  to  be  possessed  of 
"  sedakat,"  the  meaning  is  that  he  is  a  credulous, 
contemptible  simpleton.'  *  It  is  to  the  honour 
of  the  Latin  tongue,  and  very  characteristic  of 
the  best  aspects  of  Roman  life,  that  '  simplex  ' 

•  Life  and  Manners  in  Persia,  p.  247. 


sit. 


Happiness.  99 


and    'simplicitas '  never   acquired   this  abusive 
signification. 

Again,  how  prone  are  we  all  to  ascribe  to 
chance  or  fortune  those  gifts  and  blessings  which 
indeed  come  directly  from  God — to  build  altars 
to  Fortune  rather  than  to  Him  who  is  the  author 
of  every  good  thing  which  we  have  gotten.  And 
this  faith  of  men,  that  their  blessings,  even  their 
highest,  come  to  them  by  a  blind  chance,  they 
have  incorporated  in  a  word  ;  for  '  happy '  and 
'  happiness  '  are  connected  with  '  hap,'  which  is 
chance  ; — how  unworthy,  then,  to  express  any 
true  felicity,  whose  very  essence  is  that  it  ex- 
cludes hap  or  chance,  that  the  world  neither 
gave  nor  can  take  it  away.*  Against  a  similar 
misuse  of '  fortunate,'  '  unfortunate,'  Wordsworth 
very  nobly  protests,  when,  of  one  who,  having 
lost  everything  else,  had  yet  kept  the  truth,  he 
exclaims : 

'  Call  not  the  royal  Swede  unfortunate, 
Who  never  did  to  Fortune  bend  the  knee.1 

There  are  words  which  reveal  a  wrong  or  in- 
sufficient estimate  that  men  take  of  their  duties, 
or  that  at  all  events  others  have  taken  before 
them  ;  for  it  is  possible  that  the  mischief  may 
have  been  done  long  ago,  and  those  who  now 
use  the  words  may  only  have  inherited  it  from 
others,  not  helped  to  bring  it  about  themselves. 

•  The  heathen  with  their  evdainovia,  inadequate  as  this 
word  must  be  allowed  to  be,  put  us  here  to  shame. 

h  2 


ioo       On  the  Illorality  in  Words.         lect. 

An  employer  of  labour  advertises  that  he  wants 
so  many 'hands'  ;  but  this  language  never  could 
have  become  current,  a  man  could  never  have 
thus  shrunk  into  a 'hand'  in  the  eyes  of  his 
fellow-man,  unless  this  latter  had  in  good  part 
forgotten  that,  annexed  to  those  hands  which  he 
would  purchase  to  toil  for  him,  were  also  heads 
and  hearts* — a  fact,  by  the  way,  of  which,  if  he 
persists  in  forgetting  it,  he  may  be  reminded  in 
very  unwelcome  ways  at  the  last.  In  Scripture 
there  is  another  not  unfrequcnt  putting  of  a  part 
for  the  whole,  as  when  it  is  said, '  The  same  day 
there  were  added  unto  them  about  three  thou- 
sand souls'  (Acts  ii.  41).  '  Hands  '  here,  '  souls  ' 
there — the  contrast  may  suggest  some  profitable 
reflections. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  the  immorality 
of  words  mainly  displays  itself,  and  in  which 
they  work  their  worst  mischief ;  that  is,  when 
honourable  names  are  given  to  dishonourable 
things,  when  sin  is  made  plausible  ;  arrayed,  it 
may  be,  in  the  very  colours  of  goodness,  or,  if 
not  so,  yet  in  such  as  go  far  to  conceal  its  own 
native  deformity.  'The  tongue,'  as  St.  James 
has  said,  '  is  a  world  of  iniquity '  (iii.  7)  ,*  or,  as 

•  A  similar  use  of  aafiara  for  slaves  in  Greek  rested 
originally  on  the  same  forgetfulness  of  the  moral  worth 
of  every  man.  It  has  found  its  way  into  the  Septuagint 
and  Apocrypha  (Gen.  xxxvi.  6  ;  2  Mace.  viii.  11  ;  Tob.  x. 
10)  ;  and  occurs  once  in  the  New  Testament  (Rev.  xviii. 
13).  [In  Gen.  xxxvi.  6  the  aco^ara  of  the  Septuagint  is  a 
rendering  of  the  Hebrew  nafshoth,  souls,  so  Luther 
translates  '  Seelen.'] 


in.       Imposture  and  Force  of  Words,      i  o  i 

some  would  render  his  words,  and  they  are  then 
still  more  to  our  purpose,  ' the  ornament  of 
iniquity,'  that  which  sets  it  out  in  fair  and 
attractive  colours. 

How  much  wholesomer  on  all  accounts  is  it 
that  there  should  be  an  ugly  word  for  an  ugly 
thing,  one  involving  moral  condemnation  and 
disgust,  even  at  the  expense  of  a  little  coarse- 
ness, rather  than  one  which  plays  fast  and  loose 
with  the  eternal  principles  of  morality,  makes 
sin  plausible,  and  shifts  the  divinely  reared  land- 
marks of  right  and  wrong,  thus  bringing  the  user 
of  it  under  the  woe  of  them  '  that  call  evil  good, 
and  good  evil,  that  put  darkness  for  light,  and 
light  for  darkness,  that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and 
sweet  for  bitter '  (Isai.  v.  20).  On  this  text,  and 
with  reference  to  this  scheme,  South  has  written 
four  of  his  grandest  sermons,  bearing  this  strik- 
ing title,  Of  the  fatal  Imposture  and  Force  of 
Words*     How  awful,  yea  how  fearful,  is  this 


*  Sermons,  1737,  vol.  ii.  pp.  313-351  ;  vol.  vi.  pp. 
3-120.  Thus  on  those  who  pleaded  that  their  'honour' 
was  engaged,  and  that  therefore  they  could  not  go  back 
from  this  or  that  sinful  act : — '  Honour  is  indeed  a  noble 
thing,  and  therefore  the  word  which  signifies  it  must  needs 
be  very  plausible.  But  as  a  rich  and  glistening  garment 
may  be  cast  over  a  rotten  body,  so  an  illustrious  com- 
manding word  may  be  put  upon  a  vile  and  an  ugly  thing — 
for  words  are  but  the  garments,  the  loose  garments  of 
things,  and  so  may  easily  be  put  off"  and  on  according  to 
the  humour  of  him  who  bestows  them.  But  the  body 
changes  not,  though  the  garments  do.' 


102        On  the  Morality  in  Words.         utc-r. 

'imposture  and  force'  of  theirs,  leading  men 
captive  at  will.  There  is  an  atmosphere  about 
them  which  they  are  evermore  diffusing,  a 
savour  of  life  or  of  death,  which  we  insensibly 
inhale  at  each  moral  breath  we  draw.*  '  Winds 
of  the  soul,'  as  we  have  already  heard  them 
called,  they  fill  its  sails,  and  are  continually  im- 
pelling it  upon  its  course,  to  heaven  or  to  hell. 

Thus  how  different  the  light  in  which  we 
shall  have  learned  to  regard  a  sin,  according  as 
we  have  been  wont  to  designate  it,  and  to  hear 
it  designated,  by  a  word  which  brings  out  its 
loathsomeness  and  deformity  ;  or  by  one  which 
palliates  this  and  conceals  ;  men,  as  one  said  of 
old,  being  wont  for  the  most  part  to  be  ashamed 
not  of  base  deeds  but  of  base  names  affixed  to 
those  deeds.  In  the  murder  trials  at  Dublin, 
1883,  those  destined  to  the  assassin's  knife  were 
spoken  of  by  approvers  as  persons  to  be  removed, 
and  their  death  constantly  described  as  their 
'removal.'  In  Sussex  it  is  never  said  of  a  man 
that  he  is  drunk.  He  may  be  '  tight,'  or  '  primed,' 
or  '  crank,'  or  '  concerned  in  liquor,'  nay,  it  may 
even  be  admitted  that  he  had  taken  as  much 
liquor  as  was  good  for  him  ;  but  that  he  was 
drunk,  oh  never.f     Fair  words  for  foul  things 


*  Bacon's  words  have  been  often  quoted,  but  they  will 
bear  being  quoted  once  more  :  Credunt  enim  homines 
rationem  suam  verbis  imperare.  Sed  fit  etiam  ut  verba 
vim  suam  super  intellectum  retorqueant  et  reflectant. 

t  'Pransus'  and  '  potus,'  in  like  manner,  as  every 
Latin  scholar  knows,  mean  much  more  than  they  say. 


Fair  Words  for  Ugly  Things.      10; 


Jg- 


are  everywhere  only  too  frequent ;  thus  in  '  dru< 
damned    Italy,'  when  poisoning  was  the  rifest, 
nobody  was  said  to  be  poisoned  ;  it  was  only 
that  the  death  of  this  one  or  of  that  had  been 
*  assisted  '  (aiutata).    Worse  still  are  words  which 
seek  to  turn  the  edge  of  the  divine  threatenings 
against  some  sin  by  a  jest ;  as  when  in   France 
a  subtle  poison,  by  whose  aid  impatient  heirs 
delivered    themselves    from    those    who    stood 
between  them  and  the  inheritance  which  they 
coveted,  was  called  '  poudre  de  succession.'    We 
might  suppose  beforehand  that  such  cloaks  for 
sin  would  be  only  found  among  people  in   an 
advanced  state  of  artificial  cultivation.     But  it 
is  not  so.     Captain  Erskine,  who  visited  the  Fiji 
Islands  before  England  had    taken   them    into 
her  keeping,  and  who  gives  some  extraordinary 
details  of  the  extent  to  which  cannibalism  then 
prevailed    among    their    inhabitants,    pork    and 
human  flesh  being  their  two  staple  articles  of 
food,  relates  in  his  deeply  interesting  record  of 
his  voyage  that  natural  pig  they  called  '  short 
pig,'  and    man    dressed  and  prepared  for  food, 
Hong  pig.'    There  was  doubtless  an  attempt  here 
to  carry  off  with  a  jest  the  revolting  character  of 
the  practice  in  which  they  indulged.     For  that 
they  were  themselves  aware  of  this,  that  their 
consciences    did    bear    witness    against    it,    was 
attested  by  their   uniform  desire  to  conceal,  if 
possible,  all  traces  of  the  practice  from  European 
eves. 


104        On  tJie  Morality  in  Words.         "tcT. 

But  worst,  perhaps,  of  all  are  names  which 
throw  a  flimsy  veil  of  sentiment  over  some  sin. 
What  a  source,  for  example,  of  mischief  without 
end  in  our  country  parishes  is  the  one  practice 
of  calling  a  child  born  out  of  wedlock  a  '  love- 
child,'  instead  of  a  bastard.  It  would  be  hard  to 
estimate  how  much  it  has  lowered  the  tone  and 
standard  of  morality  among  us  ;  or  for  how  many 
young  women  it  may  have  helped  to  make  the 
downward  way  more  sloping  still.  How  vigor- 
ously ought  we  to  oppose  ourselves  to  all  such 
immoralities  of  language.  This  opposition,  it  is 
true,  will  never  be  easy  or  pleasant  ;  for  many 
who  will  endure  to  commit  a  sin,  will  profoundly 
resent  having  that  sin  called  by  its  right  name. 
Pirates,  as  Aristotle  tells  us,  in  his  time  called 
themselves  '  purveyors.'  *  Buccaneers,  men  of 
the  same  bloody  trade,  were  by  their  own 
account  '  brethren  of  the  coast.'  Shakespeare's 
thieves  are  only  true  to  human  nature,  when  they 
name  themselves  '  St.  Nicholas'  clerks,' '  michers,' 
'  nuthooks,'  '  minions  of  the  moon,'  anything  in 
short  but  thieves  ;  when  they  claim  for  their 
stealing  that  it  shall  not  be  so  named,  but  only 
conveying  ('  convey  the  wise  it  call ')  ;  the  same 
dislike  to  look  an  ugly  fact  in  the  face  reappear- 
ing among  the  voters  in  some  of  our  corrupter 
boroughs,  who  receive,  not  bribes — they  are 
hugely  indignant  if  this  is  imputed  to  them — 


Rfiet.  iii.  2  :   ol  Xporat  avrovs  iropicrTas  KaXovai  vvv. 


■31. 


Brides.  105 


but  '  head-money  '  for  their  votes.  Shakespeare 
indeed  has  said  that  a  rose  by  any  other  name 
would  smell  as  sweet ;  but  there  are  some  things 
which  are  not  roses,  and  which  are  counted  to 
smell  a  great  deal  sweeter  being  called  by  any 
other  name  than  their  own.  Thus,  to  deal  again 
with  bribes,  call  a  bribe  '  palm  oil,'  or  a  '  pot  de 
vin,'  and  how  much  of  its  ugliness  disappears. 
Far  more  moral  words  are  the  English  '  sharper' 
and  '  blackleg '  than  the  French  '  chevalier 
d'industrie ' :  *  and  the  same  holds  good  of  the 
English  equivalent,  coarse  as  it  is,  for  the  Latin 
*  conciliatrix.'  In  this  last  word  we  have  a 
notable  example  of  the  putting  of  sweet  for 
bitter,  of  the  attempt  to  present  a  disgraceful 
occupation  on  an  amiable,  almost  a  sentimental 
side,  rather  than  in  its  own  proper  deformity.! 


*  For  the  rise  of  this  phrase,  see  Lemontey,  Louis 
XIV.  p.  43- 

t  This  tendency  of  men  to  throw  the  mantle  of  an 
honourable  word  over  a  dishonourable  thing,  or,  vice 
versa,  to  degrade  an  honourable  thing,  when  they  do  not 
love  it,  by  a  dishonourable  appellation,  has  in  Greek  a 
word  to  describe  it,  vnoKopl^a-Bai,  itself  a  word  with  an 
interesting  history  ;  while  the  great  ethical  teachers  of 
Greece  frequently  occupy  themselves  in  detecting  and 
denouncing  this  most  mischievous  among  all  the  im- 
postures of  words.  Thus,  when  Thucydides  (iii.  82) 
would  paint  the  fearful  moral  ruin  which  her  great  Civil 
War  had  wrought,  he  adduces  this  alteration  of  the  re- 
ceived value  of  words,  this  fitting  of  false  names  to  every- 
thing— names  of  honour  to  the  base,  and  of  baseness  to 
the  honourable — as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  tokens  of 


106        On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

Use  and  custom  soon  dim  our  eyes  in  such 
matters  as  these  ;  else  we  should  be  deeply  struck 
by  a  familiar  instance  of  this  falsehood  in  names, 
one  which  perhaps  has  never  struck  us  at  all — I 
mean  the  profane  appropriation  of  '  eau  de  vie ' 
(water  of  life),  a  name  borrowed  from  some  cf 
the  Saviour's  most  precious  promises  (John  iv. 
14;  Rev.   xxii.    17),  to   a  drink  which  the  un- 
tutored savage  with  a  truer  instinct  has  named 
1  fire-water '  ;    which,  sad   to   say,  is    known    in 
Tahiti  as  '  British  water ' ;  and  which  has  proved 
for  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  in  every 
clime,  not  '  water  of  life,'  but  the  fruitful  source 
of  disease,  crime,  and  madness,  bringing  forth 
first  these,  and  when  these  are  finished,  bringing 
forth  death.     There  is  a  blasphemous  irony  in 
this  appropriation  of   the   language   of  heaven 
to  that   which,  not   indeed   in   its  use,  but  too 
frequent  abuse,  is  the  instrument  of  hell,  that  is 
almost  without  a  parallel.* 


this,  even  as  it  again  set  forward  the  evil,  of  which  it  had 
been  first  the  result. 

*  Milton  in  a  profoundly  instructive  letter,  addressed 
by  him  to  one  of  the  friends  whom  he  made  during  his 
Italian  tour,  encourages  him  in  those  philological  studies 
to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life  by  such  words  as  these  : 
Neque  enim  qui  sermo,  purusne  an  corruptus,  quaeve 
loquendi  proprietas  quotidiana  populo  sit,  parvi  interesse 
arbitrandum  est,  quae  res  Athenis  non  semel  saluti  fuit  ; 
immo  vero,  quod  Platonis  sententia  est,  immutato  vesti- 
endi  more  habituque  graves  in  Republica  motus  muta- 
tionesque  portendi,  equidem  potius  collabente  in  vitium 


111. 


Nicknames.  107 


If  I  wanted  any  further  evidence  of  this,  the 
moral  atmosphere  which  words  diffuse,  I  would 
ask  you  to  observe  how  the  first  thing  men  do, 
when  engaged  in  controversy  with  others,  be  it 
in  the  conflict  of  the  tongue  or  the  pen,  or  of 
weapons  more  wounding  yet,  if  such  there  be,  is 
ever  to  assume  some  honourable  name  to  them- 
selves, such  as,  if  possible,  shall  beg  the  whole 
subject  in  dispute,  and  at  the  same  time  to  affix 
on  their  adversaries  a  name  which  shall  place 
them  in  a  ridiculous  or  contemptible  or  odious 
light.*  A  deep  instinct,  deeper  perhaps  than 
men  give  any  account  of  to  themselves,  tells 
them  how  far  this  will  go ;  that  multitudes, 
utterly  unable  to  weigh  the  arguments  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  will  yet  be  receptive  of  the 
influences  which  these  words  are  evermore, 
however  imperceptibly,  diffusing.  By  argument 
they  might  hope  to  gain  over  the  reason  of  a 
few,  but  by  help  of  these  nicknames  they  enlist 
what  at  first  are  so  much  more  potent,  the  pre- 
judices and  passions  of  the  many,  on  their  side. 


atque  errorem  loquendi  usu  occasum  ejus  urbis  remque 
humilem  et  obscuram  subsequi  crediderim  :  verba  enim 
partim  inscita  et  putida,  partim  mendosa  et  perperam 
prolata,  quid  si  ignavos  et  oscitantes  et  ad  servile  quidvis 
jam  olim  paratos  incolarum  animos  haud  levi  indicio  de- 
clarant ?  Contra  nullum  unquam  audivimus  imperium, 
nullam  civitatem  non  mediocriter  saltern  floiuisse,  quam- 
diu  linguae  sua  gratia,  suusque  cultus  constitit.  Compare 
an  interesting  Epistle  (the  1 14th)  of  Seneca. 
•  See  p.  33. 


io8       On  the  Morality  in   Words.       lect. 

Thus  when  at  the  breaking  out  of  our  Civil 
War  the  Parliamentary  party  styled  themselves 
'  The  Godly/  while  to  the  Royalists  they  gave 
the  title  of  '  The  Malignants,'  it  is  certain  that, 
wherever  they  could  procure  entrance  and  allow- 
ance for  these  terms,  the  question  upon  whose 
side  the  right  lay  was  already  decided.  The 
Royalists,  it  is  true,  made  exactly  the  same  em- 
ployment of  what  Bentham  used  to  call  question- 
begging  words,  of  words  steeped  quite  as  deeply 
in  the  passions  which  animated  them.  It  was 
much  when  at  Florence  the '  Bad  Boys,'  as  they 
defiantly  called  themselves,  were  able  to  affix  on 
the  followers  of  Savonarola  the  title  of  Piagnoni 
or  The  Snivellers.  So,  too,  the  Franciscans,  when 
they  nicknamed  the  Dominicans  '  Maculists,'  as 
denying,  or  at  all  events  refusing  to  affirm  as 
a  matter  of  faith,  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  was 
conceived  without  stain  (sine  macula),  perfectly 
knew  that  this  title  would  do  much  to  put  their 
rivals  in  an  odious  light.  The  copperhead  in 
America  is  a  peculiarly  venomous  snake.  Some- 
thing effectual  was  done  when  this  name  was 
fastened,  as  it  lately  was,  by  one  party  in 
America  on  its  political  opponents.  Not  other- 
wise, in  some  of  our  northern  towns,  the  workmen 
who  refuse  to  join  a  trade  union  are  styled 
« knobsticks,'  '  crawlers,' '  scabs,' '  blacklegs.'  Nor 
can  there  be  any  question  of  the  potent  influence 

*  [See  interesting  chapter  on  Political  Nicknames  in 
D'Israeli's  Curiosities  of  Literature.] 


in.  Language  a  Recordof  Good  and  Evil.  109 

which  these  nicknames  of  contempt  and  scorn 

exert 

Seeing,  then,  that  language  contains  so  faith- 
ful a  record  of  the  good  and  of  the  evil  which  in 
time  past  have  been  working  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men,  we  shall  not  err,  if  we  regard  it  as 
a  moral  barometer  indicating  and  permanently 
marking  the  rise  or  fall  of  a  nation's  life.  To 
study  a  people's  language  will  be  to  study  them, 
and  to  study  them  at  best  advantage  ;  there, 
where  they  present  themselves  to  us  under  fewest 
disguises,  most  nearly  as  they  are.  Too  many 
have  had  a  hand  in  the  language  as  it  now  is, 
and  in  bringing  it  to  the  shape  in  which  we  find 
it,  it  is  too  entirely  the  collective  work  of  a  whole 
people,  the  result  of  the  united  contributions  of 
all,  it  obeys  too  immutable  laws,  to  allow  any 
successful  tampering  with  it,  any  making  of  it 
to  witness  to  any  other  than  the  actual  facts  of 
the  case.* 

*  Terrien  Poncel,  Du  Langage,  p.  231  :  Les  langues 
sont  faites  a  l'usage  des  peuples  qui  les  parlent ;  elles 
sont  animees  chacune  d'un  esprit  different,  et  suivent  un 
mode  particulier  d'action,  conforme  a  leur  principe. 
'  L'esprit  d'une  nation  et  le  caractere  de  sa  langue,'  a 
ecrit  G.  de  Humboldt,  'sont  si  intimement  lies  ensemble, 
que  si  l'un  etait  donne,  l'autre  devrait  pouvoir  s'en  deduire 
exactement.'  La  langue  n'est  autre  chose  que  la  mani- 
festation exterieure  de  l'esprit  des  peuples ;  leur  langue 
est  leur  esprit,  et  leur  esprit  est  leur  langue,  de  telle  sorte 
qu'en  developpant  et  perfectionnant  l'un,  ils  developpent 
et  perfectionnent  n^cessairement  l'autre.  And  a  recent 
German  writer  has  well  said,  Die  Sprache,  das  selbst- 


1 10       On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lkct. 

Thus  the  frivolity  of  an  age  or  nation,  its 
mockery  of  itself,  its  inability  to  comprehend 
the  true  dignity  and  meaning  of  life,  the  feeble- 
ness of  its  moral  indignation  against  evil,  all 
this  will  find  an  utterance  in  the  employment  of 
solemn  and  earnest  words  in  senses  comparatively 
trivial  or  even  ridiculous.  '  Gehenna,'  that  word 
of  such  terrible  significance  on  the  lips  of  our 
Lord,  has  in  French  issued  in  '  gene,'  and  in  this 
shape  expresses  no  more  than  a  slight  and  petty 
annoyance.  '  Ennui '  meant  once  something 
very  different  from  what  now  it  means.  Littre 
gives  as  its  original  signification,  '  anguish  of 
soul,  caused  by  the  death  of  persons  beloved, 
by  their  absence,  by  the  shipwreck  of  hopes,  by 
any  misfortunes  whatever.'*  '  HonneteteV  which 
should  mean  that  virtue  of  all  virtues,  honesty, 
and  which  did  mean  it  once,  standing  as  it  does 
now  for  external  civility  and  for  nothing  more, 
marks  a  willingness  to  accept  the  slighter  obser- 
vances and  pleasant  courtesies  of  society  in  the 
room  of  deeper  moral  qualities.  '  Verite '  is  at 
this  day  so  worn  out,  has  been  used  so  often 
where  another  and  very  different  word  would 
have  been  more  appropriate,  that  not  seldom  a 


gewebte  Kleid  der  Vorstellung,  in  welchem  jeder  Faden 
wieder  eine  Vorstellung  ist,  kann  uns,  richtig  betrachtet, 
offenbaren,  welche  Vorstellungen  die  Grundfaden  bildeten 
(Gerber,  Die  Sprache  als  Kunsf). 

*  [Ennui  is  derived  from  the  Late  Latin  phrase  in 
odio  esse.] 


III. 


Idiot.  1 1 1 


Frenchman  at  this  present  who  would  fain  con- 
vince us  of  the  truth  of  his  communication  finds 
it  convenient  to  assure  us  that  it  is  '  la  vraie 
verite?  Neither  is  it  well  that  words,  which 
ought  to  have  been  reserved  for  the  highest 
mysteries  of  the  spiritual  life,  should  be  squan- 
dered on  slight  and  secular  objects, — 'spirituel' 
itself  is  an  example  in  point, — or  that  words 
implying  once  the  deepest  moral  guilt,  as  is  the 
case  with  '  perfide,'  •  malice,'  'malin,'  in  French, 
should  be  employed  now  almost  in  honour, 
applied  in  jest  and  in  play. 

Often  a  people's  use  of  some  single  word  will 
afford  us  a  deeper  insight  into  their  real  con- 
dition, their  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  than 
whole  volumes  written  expressly  with  the  inten- 
tion of  imparting  this  insight.  Thus  '  idiot,'  a 
Greek  word,  is  abundantly  characteristic  of 
Greek  life.  The  '  idiot,'  or  ISuottis,  was  originally 
the  private  man,  as  contradistinguished  from  one 
clothed  with  office,  and  taking  his  share  in  the 
management  of  public  affairs.  In  this  its  primary 
sense  it  was  often  used  in  the  English  of  the 
seventeenth  century  ;  as  when  Jeremy  Taylor 
says,  '  Humility  is  a  duty  in  great  ones,  as  well 
as  in  idiots?  It  came  then  to  signify  a  rude, 
ignorant,  unskilled,  intellectually  unexercised 
person,  a  boor ;  this  derived  or  secondary  sense 
bearing  witness  to  a  conviction  woven  deep  into 
the  Greek  mind  that  contact  with  public  life,  and 
more  or  less  of  participation  in  it,  was  indispcns- 


1 1 2        On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lect. 

able  even  to  the  right  development  of  the  in- 
tellect,* a  conviction  which  would  scarcely  have 
uttered  itself  with  greater  clearness  than  it  does 
in  this  secondary  use  of  '  idiot.'  Our  tertiary,  in 
which  the  '  idiot '  is  one  deficient  in  intellect,  not 
merely  with  intellectual  powers  unexercised,  is 
only  this  secondary  pushed  a  little  farther.  Once 
more,  how  wonderfully  characteristic  of  the 
Greek  mind  it  is  that  the  language  should  have 
one  and  the  same  word  (tcaXSs),  to  express  the 
beautiful  and  the  good — goodness  being  thus 
contemplated  as  the  highest  beauty  ;  while  over 
against  this  stands  another  word  (alo-^pos),  used 
alike  for  the  ugly  to  look  at  and  for  the  morally 
bad.  Again,  the  innermost  differences  between 
the  Greek  and  the  Hebrew  reveal  themselves  in 
the  several  salutations  of  each,  in  the  '  Rejoice ' 
of  the  first,  as  contrasted  with  the  '  Peace '  of 
the  second.  The  clear,  cheerful,  world-enjoying 
temper  of  the  Greek  embodies  itself  in  the  first ; 

.  he   could   desire  nothing    better  or  higher  for 
himself,  nor  wish  it  for  his  friend,  than  to  have 

joy  in  his  life.  But  the  Hebrew  had  a  deeper 
longing  within  him,  and  one  which  finds  utter- 
ance in  his  '  Peace.'  It  is  not  hard  to  perceive 
why  this  latter  people  should  have  been  chosen 
as  the  first  bearers  of  that  truth  which  indeed 
enables  truly  to  rejoice,  but  only  through  first 
bringing  peace  ;  nor  why  from  them  the  word  of 


*  Hare,  Mission  of  the  Comforter,  p.  552. 


m.  Modifications  of  Meaning.  113 

life  should  first  go  forth.  It  may  be  urged, 
indeed,  that  these  were  only  forms,  and  such 
they  may  have  at  length  become  ;  as  in  our 
'good-by '  or  'adieu'  we  can  hardly  be  said  now 
to  commit  our  friend  to  the  Divine  protection ; 
yet  still  they  were  not  forms  at  the  beginning, 
nor  would  they  have  held  their  ground,  if  ever 
they  had  become  such  altogether. 

How  much,  again,  will  be  sometimes  involved 
in  the  gradual  disuse  of  one  name,  and  the 
coming  up  of  another  in  its  room.  Thus,  little 
as  the  fact,  and  the  moral  significance  of  the 
fact,  may  have  been  noticed  at  the  time,  what 
an  epoch  was  it  in  the  history  of  the  Papacy, 
and  with  what  distinctness  marking  a  more 
thorough  secularizing  of  its  whole  tone  and  spirit, 
when  '  Ecclesia  Romana,'the  official  title  by  which 
it  was  wont  at  an  earlier  day  to  designate  itself, 
gave  place  to  the  later  title,  '  Curia  Romana,' 
the  Roman  Church  making  room  for  the  Roman 
Court.  * 

The  modifications  of  meaning  which  a  word 
has  undergone  as  it  had  been  transplanted  from 
one  soil  to  another,  so  that  one  nation  borrow- 
ing it  from  another,  has  brought  into  it  some 
force  foreign  to  it  before,  has  deepened,  or  ex- 
tenuated, or  otherwise  modified  its  meaning, — 
this  may  reveal  to  us,  as  perhaps  nothing  else 
would,  fundamental  diversities  of  character  exist- 


*  See  on  this  matter  The  Pope  a?id  the  Council,  by 
Janus,  p.  215. 

I 


1 1 4       On  the  Morality  in  Words.         lkct. 

ing  between  them.  The  word  in  Greek  exactly 
corresponding  to  our  '  self-sufficient '  is  one  of 
honour,  and  was  applied  to  men  in  their  praise. 
And  indeed  it  was  the  glory  of  the  heathen 
philosophy  to  teach  man  to  find  his  resources  in 
his  own  bosom,  to  be  thus  sufficient  for  himself ; 
and  seeing  that  a  true  centre  without  him  and 
above  him,  a  centre  in  God,  had  not  been  re- 
vealed to  him,  it  was  no  shame  for  him  to  seek 
it  there;  far  better  this  than  to  have  no  centre 
at  all.  But  the  Gospel  has  taught  us  another 
lesson,  to  find  our  sufficiency  in  God  :  and  thus 
'  self-sufficient,'  to  the  Greek  suggesting  no  lack 
of  modesty,  of  humility,  or  of  any  good  thing, 
at  once  suggests  such  to  us.  '  Self-sufficiency  ' 
no  man  desires  now  to  be  attributed  to  him. 
The  word  carries  for  us  its  own  condemnation  ; 
and  its  different  uses,  for  honour  once,  for  reproach 
now,  do  in  fact  ground  themselves  on  the  inner- 
most differences  between  the  religious  condition 
of  the  world  before  Christ  and  after. 

It  was  not  well  with  Italy,  she  might  fill  the 
world  with  exquisite  specimens  of  her  skill  in 
the  arts,  with  pictures  and  statues  of  rarest 
loveliness,  but  all  higher  national  life  was  want- 
ins'  to  her  during  those  centuries  in  which  she 
degraded  'virtuoso,'  or  the  virtuous  man,  to 
signify  one  skilled  in  the  appreciation  of  paint- 
ing, music,  and  sculpture  ;  for  these,  the  orna- 
mental fringe  of  a  people's  life,  can  never,  without 
loss  of  all  manliness  of  character,  be  its  main 


ni.  Morbidezza,  Pelegri7io.  115 

texture  and  woof— not  to  say  that  excellence  in 
them  has  been  too  often  dissociated  from  all  true 
virtue  and  moral  worth.  The  opposite  exaggera- 
tion of  the  Romans,  for  whom  '  virtus '  meant 
predominantly  warlike  courage,  the  truest  '  man- 
liness' of  men,  was  more  tolerable  than  this  ;  for 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  a  man's  '  valour '  is  his 
value,  is  the  measure  of  his  worth  ;  seeing  that 
no  virtue  can  exist  among  men  who  have  not 
learned,  in  Milton's  glorious  phrase, '  to  hate  the 
cowardice  of  doing  wrong.'  *  It  could  not  but  be 
morally  ill  with  a  people  among  whom  '  mor- 
bidezza'  was  used  as  an  epithet  of  praise, 
expressive  of  a  beauty  which  on  the  score  o£ 
its  sickly  softness  demanded  to  be  admired. 
There  was  too  sure  a  witness  here  for  the 
decay  of  moral  strength  and  health,  when  these 
could  not  merely  be  dissevered  from  beauty, 
but  implicitly  put  in  opposition  to  it.  Nor 
less  must  it  have  fared  ill  with  Italians,  there 
was  little  joy  and  little  pride  which  they  could 
have  felt  in  their  country,  at  a  time  when  '  pelle- 
grino,'  meaning  properly  the  strange  or  the 
foreign,  came  to  be  of  itself  a  word  of  praise, 
and  equivalent  to  beautiful.f  Far  better  the  pride 
and  assumption  of  that  ancient  people  who  called 


•  It  did  not  escape  Plutarch,  imperfect  Latin  scholar 
as  he  was,  that  •  virtus '  far  more  nearly  corresponded  to 
avdpeia  than  to  aperr)  {Coriol.  i). 

t  [Compare  Florio's  Ital.  Diet.  :  ' pelegrino,  excellent, 
noble,  rare,  pregnant,  singular  and  choice.'] 


1 1 6       On  the  Morality  in  Words.         u=ct. 

all  things  and  persons  beyond  their  own  pale 
barbarous  and  barbarians  ;  far  better  our  own 
•  outlandish,'  used  with  something  of  the  same 
contempt.  There  may  be  a  certain  intolerance 
in  our  use  of  these  ;  yet  this  how  much  healthier 
than  so  far  to  have  fallen  out  of  conceit  with 
one's  own  country,  so  far  to  affect  things  foreign, 
that  these  last,  merely  on  the  strength  of  being 
foreign,  commend  themselves  as  beautiful  in  our 
sight.  How  little,  again,  the  Italians,  until  quite 
later  years,  can  have  lived  in  the  spirit  of  their 
ancient  worthies,  or  reverenced  the  most  illus- 
trious among  these,  we  may  argue  from  the  fact 
that  they  should  have  endured  so  far  to  degrade 
the  name  of  one  among  their  noblest,  that  every 
glib  and  loquacious  hireling  who  shows  strangers 
about  their  picture-galleries,  palaces,  and  ruins, 
is  called  '  cicerone,'  or  a  Cicero !  It  is  unfor- 
tunate that  terms  like  these,  having  once  sprung 
up,  are  not  again,  or  are  not  easily  again,  got 
rid  of.  They  remain,  testifying  to  an  ignoble 
past,  and  in  some  sort  helping  to  maintain  it, 
long  after  the  temper  and  tone  of  mind  that 
produced  them  has  passed  away.* 

Happily  it  is  nearly  impossible  for  us  in 
England  to  understand  the  mingled  scorn, 
hatred,  fear,  suspicion,  contempt,  which  in  time 
past  were  associated  with  the  word  'sbirri'  in 

•  See  on  this  matter  Marsh,   On  the  English  Lan- 
guage, New  York,  i860,  p.  224. 


in  Publican,  Policeman.  1 1 7 

Italian  *  These '  sbirri '  were  the  humble,  but  with 
all  this  the  acknowledged,  ministers  of  justice ; 
while  yet  everything  which  is  mean  and  false  and 
oppressive,  which  can  make  the  name  of  justice 
hateful,  was  implied  in  this  title  of  theirs,  was  asso- 
ciated with  their  name.  There  is  no  surer  sign  of  a 
bad  oppressive  rule,  than  when  the  titles  of  the 
administrators  of  law,  titles  which  should  be  in 
themselves  so  honourable,  thus  acquire  a  hateful 
undermeaning.  What  a  world  of  concussions, 
chicane  and  fraud,  must  have  found  place,  before 
tax-gatherer,  or  exciseman,  '  publican,'  as  in  our 
English  Bible,  could  become  a  word  steeped  in 
hatred  and  scorn,  as  alike  for  Greek  and  Jew  it 
was ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  however  unwel- 
come the  visits  of  the  one  or  the  interference  of 
the  other  may  be  to  us,  yet  the  sense  of  the  entire 
fairness  and  justice  with  which  their  exactions 
are  made,  acquits  these  names  for  us  of  the 
slightest  sense  of  dishonour.  '  Policeman  '  has 
no  evil  subaudition  with  us ;  though  in  the 
last  century,  when  a  Jonathan  Wild  was  possible, 
1  catchpole,'  a  word  in  Wiclif's  time  of  no  dis- 
honour at  all,  was  abundantly  tinged  with  this 
scorn  and  contempt.  So  too,  if  at  this  day  any 
accidental  profits  fall  or  '  escheat '  to  the  Crown, 

•  [Compare  V.  Hugo's  allusion  to  Louis  Napoleon  in 
the  Chatiments : 

'  Qui  pour  la  mettre  en  croix  livra, 

Sbire  cruel  ! 
Rome  r^publicaine  a  Rome  catholique  I '] 


1 1 8        On  the  Morality  in  Words. 


LBCT. 


they  are  levied  with  so  much  fairness  and  more 
than  fairness  to  the  subject,  that,  were  not  the 
thing  already  accomplished,  'escheat'  would 
never  yield  '  cheat,'  nor  '  escheator  '  '  cheater,'  as 
through  the  extortions  and  injustices  for  which 
these  dues  were  formerly  a  pretext,  they  actually 
have  done. 

It  is  worse,  as  marking  that  a  still  holier 
sanctuary  than  that  of  civil  government  has  be- 
come profane  in  men's  sight,  when  words  which 
express  sacred  functions  and  offices  become 
redolent  of  scorn.  How  thankful  we  may  be 
that  in  England  we  have  no  equivalent  to  the 
German  '  Pfaffe,'  which,  identical  with  '  papa  ' 
and  '  pope,'  and  a  name  given  at  first  to  any 
priest,  now  carries  with  it  the  insinuation  of 
almost  every  unworthiness  in  the  forms  of  mean- 
ness, servility,  and  avarice  which  can  render  the 
priest's  office  and  person  base  and  contemptible. 

Much  may  be  learned  by  noting  the  words 
which  nations  have  been  obliged  to  borrow  from 
other  nations,  as  not  having  the  same  of  home- 
growth — this  in  most  cases,  if  not  in  all,  testify- 
ing that  the  thing  itself  was  not  native,  but  an 
exotic,  transplanted,  like  the  word  that  indicated 
it,  from  a  foreign  soil.  Thus  it  is  singularly 
characteristic  of  the  social  and  political  life  of 
England,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  other 
European  nations,  that  to  it  alone  the  word 
'  club '  belongs  ;  France  and  Germany,  having 
been  alike  unable  to  grow  a  word  of  their  own, 


ILL 


Club.  119 


have  borrowed  ours.  That  England  should  have 
been  the  birthplace  of 'club'  is  nothing  wonder- 
ful ;  for  these  voluntary  associations  of  men  for 
the  furthering  of  such  social  or  political  ends  as 
are  near  to  the  hearts  of  the  associates  could 
have  only  had  their  rise  under  such  favourable 
circumstances  as  ours.  In  no  country  where 
there  was  not  extreme  personal  freedom  could 
they  have  sprung  up  ;  and  as  little  in  any  where 
men  did  not  know  how  to  use  this  freedom  with 
moderation  and  self-restraint,  could  they  long 
have  been  endured.  It  was  comparatively  easy 
to  adopt  the  word  ;  but  the  ill  success  of  the 
'  club '  itself  everywhere  save  here  where  it  is 
native,  has  shown  that  it  was  not  so  easy  to 
transplant  or,  having  transplanted,  to  acclima- 
tize the  thing.  While  we  have  lent  this  and 
other  words,  political  and  industrial  for  the  most 
part,  to  the  French  and  Germans,  it  would  not 
be  less  instructive,  if  time  allowed,  to  trace  our 
corresponding  obligations  to  them. 

And  scarcely  less  significant  and  instructive 
than  the  presence  of  a  word  in  a  language,  will 
be  occasionally  its  absence.  Thus  Fronto,  a 
Greek  orator  in  Roman  times,  finds  evidence  of 
an  absence  of  strong  family  affection  on  the  part 
of  the  Romans  in  the  absence  of  any  word  in 
the  Latin  language  corresponding  to  the  Greek 
<f)i\6(TTop<yos.  How  curious,  from  the  same  point 
of  view,  are  the  conclusions  which  Cicero  in  his 
high  Roman  fashion  draws  from  the  absence  of 


i-0         On  the  Morality  in  Words.  lect. 

any  word  in  the  Greek  answering  to  the  Latin 
1  ineptus ' ;  not  from  this  concluding,  as  we 
might  have  anticipated,  that  the  character  de- 
signated by  the  word  was  wanting,  but  rather 
that  the  fault  was  so  common,  so  universal  with 
the  Greeks,  that  they  failed  to  recognize  it  as  a 
fault  at  all.*  Very  instructive  you  may  find  it 
to  note  these  words,  which  one  people  possess, 
but  to  which  others  have  nothing  to  correspond, 
so  that  they  have  no  choice  but  to  borrow  these, 
or  else  to  go  without  altogether.  Here  are  some 
French  words  for  which  it  would  not  be  easy, 
nay,  in  most  cases  it  would  be  impossible,  to 
find  exact  equivalents  in  English  or  in  German, 
or  probably  in  any  language :  '  aplomb,'  '  badi- 
nage,' '  borneV  •  chic,'  '  chicane,'  '  cossu,'  '  coterie,' 
'  egarement,'  '  elan,'  '  espieglerie,'  '^tourderie,' 
'friponnerie,'  'gentil,'  'ingenue,'  'liaison,'  'malice,' 
•  parvenu,'  '  persiflage,'  '  preVenant,'  '  ruse,'  '  tour- 
nure,'   '  tracasserie,'   '  verve.'     It  is  evident  that 


•  De  Orat.  ii.  4  :  Quern  enim  nos  ineptum  vocamus, 
is  mihi  videtur  ab  hoc  nomen  habere  ductum,  quod  non 
sit  aptus.  Idque  in  sermonis  nostri  consuetudine  perlate 
patet.  Nam  qui  aut  tempus  quid  postulet,  non  videt,  aut 
plura  loquitur,  aut  se  ostentat,  aut  eorum  quibuscum  est 
vel  dignitatis  vel  commodi  rationem  non  habet,  aut  de- 
nique  in  aliquo  genere  aut  inconcinnus  aut  multus  est,  is 
ineptus  esse  dicitur.  Hoc  vitio  cumulata  est  eruditissima 
ilia  Grcecorum  natio.  Itaque  quod  vim  hujus  mali  Grasci 
non  vident,  ne  nomen  quidem  ei  vitio  imposuerunt.  Ut 
enim  quseras  omnia,  quomodo  Greed  ineptum  appellent, 
non  invenies. 


m.  Habldr,  Pctrler.  1 2 1 

the  words  just  named  have  to  do  with  shades  of 
thought  which  are  to  a  great  extent  unfamiliai 
to  us  ;  for  which,  at  any  rate,  we  have  not  found 
a  name,  have  hardly  felt  that  they  needed  one. 
But  fine  and  subtle  as  in  many  instances  are  the 
thoughts  which  these  words  embody,  there  are 
deeper  thoughts  struggling  in  the  bosom  of  a 
people,  who  have  devised  for  themselves  such 
words  as  the  following  :  '  gemiith,'  '  heimweh,' 
'  innigkeit,'  '  sehnsucht,  '  tiefsinn,'  '  sittsamkeit,' 
1  verhangniss,'  '  weltschmerz,'  '  zucht '  ;  all  these 
being  German  words  which,  in  a  similar  manner, 
partially  or  wholly  fail  to  find  their  equivalents 
in  French. 

The  petty  spite  which  unhappily  so  often 
reigns  between  nations  dwelling  side  by  side 
with  one  another,  as  it  embodies  itself  in  many 
shapes,  so  it  finds  vent  in  the  words  which  they 
borrow  from  one  another,  and  the  use  to  which 
they  put  them.  Thus  the  French,  borrowing 
'  hablar '  from  the  Spaniards,  with  whom  it 
means  simply  to  speak,  give  it  in  '  habler '  the 
sense  of  to  brag  ;  the  Spaniards  paying  them 
off  in  exactly  their  own  coin,  for  of  'parler,' 
which  in  like  manner  is  but  to  speak  in  French, 
they  make  'parlar,'  which  means  to  prate,  to 
chat.* 

But  it  is  time  to  bring  this  lecture  to  an  end. 
These  illustrations,  to  which  it  would  be  easy  to 

•  [See  Darmesteter,  The  Life  of  Words,  Eng.  ed. 
p.  icxx] 


122        O71  the  Illorality  in  Words.         lkct. 

add  more,  justify  all  that  has  been  asserted  of  a 
moral  element  existing  in  words ;  so  that  they  do 
not  hold  themselves  neutral  in  that  great  conflict 
between  good  and  evil,  light  and  darkness,  which 
is  dividing  the  world ;  that  they  are  not  satisfied 
to  be  passionless  vehicles,  now  of  the  truth,  and 
now  of  lies.  We  see,  on  the  contrary,  that  they 
continually  take  their  side,  are  some  of  them 
children  of  light,  others  children  of  this  world,  or 
even  of  darkness  ;  they  beat  with  the  pulses  of 
our  life  ;  they  stir  with  our  passions  ;  we  clothe 
them  with  light  ;  we  steep  them  in  scorn  ;  they 
receive  from  us  the  impressions  of  our  good  and 
of  our  evil,  which  again  they  are  most  active  still 
further  to  propagate  and  diffuse.*  Must  we  not 
own  then  that  there  is  a  wondrous  and  myste- 
rious world,  of  which  we  may  hitherto  have  taken 
too  little  account,  around  us  and  about  us  ?     Is 

*  Two  or  three  examples  of  what  we  have  been 
affirming,  drawn  from  the  Latin,  may  fitly  here  find  place. 
Thus  Cicero  {Tusc.  iii.  7)  laments  of  'confidens'  that  it 
should  have  acquired  an  evil  signification,  and  come  to 
mean  bold,  over-confident  in  oneself,  unduly  pushing 
(compare  Virgil,  Georg.  iv.  444),  a  meaning  which  little  by 
little  had  been  superinduced  on  the  word,  but  etymologi- 
cally  was  not  inherent  in  it  at  all.  In  the  same  way '  latro,' 
having  left  two  earlier  meanings  behind,  one  of  these 
current  so  late  as  in  Virgil  (s£n.  xii.  7),  settles  down  at 
last  in  the  meaning  of  robber.  Not  otherwise  '  facinus ' 
begins  with  being  simply  a  fact  or  act,  something  done  ; 
but  ends  with  being  some  act  of  outrageous  wickedness. 
'  Pronuba'  starts  with  meaning  a  bridesmaid  ;  it  ignobly 
ends  with  suggesting  a  procuress. 


hi.  Potency  of  Words.  123 

there  not  something  very  solemn  and  very  awful 
in  wielding  such  an  instrument  as  this  of  lan- 
guage is,  with  such  power  to  wound  or  to  heal,  to 
kill  or  to  make  alive  ?  and  may  not  a  deeper 
meaning  than  hitherto  we  have  attached  to  it, 
lie  in  that  saying,  '  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be 
justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  con- 
demned '  ? 


124         On  the  History  in  Words.  Liter, 


LECTURE  IV. 
ON   THE  HISTORY  IN   WORDS. 

LANGUAGE,  being  ever  in  flux  and  flow,  and, 
for  nations  to  which  letters  are  still  strange, 
existing  only  for  the  ear  and  as  a  sound,  we 
might  beforehand  expect  would  prove  the  least 
trustworthy  of  all  vehicles  whereby  the  know- 
ledge of  the  past  has  reached  our  present ;  that 
one  which  would  most  certainly  betray  its  charge. 
In  actual  fact  it  has  not  proved  so  at  all.  It  is 
the  main,  oftentimes  the  only,  connecting  link 
between  the  two,  an  ark  riding  above  the  water- 
floods  that  have  swept  away  or  submerged  every 
other  landmark  and  memorial  of  bygone  ages 
and  vanished  generations  of  men.  Far  beyond 
all  written  records  in  a  language,  the  language 
itself  stretches  back,  and  offers  itself  for  our  in- 
vestigation— 'the  pedigree  of  nations,'  as  Johnson 
calls  it  * — itself  in  its  own  independent  existence 


*  This  statement  of  his  must  be  taken  with  a  certain 
amount  of  qualification.  It  is  not  always  that  races  are 
true  to  the  end  to  their  language  ;  external  forces  are 
sometimes  too  strong.  Thus  Celtic  disappeared  before 
Latin  in  Gaul  and  Spain.  Slavonic  became  extinct  in 
Prussia  two  centuries  ago,  German  taking  its  room;  the 


i*.  English  History.  125 

a  far  older  and  at  the  same  time  a  far  more  in- 
structive document  than  any  book,  inscription, 
or  other  writing  which  employs  it  The  written 
records  may  have  been  falsified  by  carelessness, 
by  vanity,  by  fraud,  by  a  multitude  of  causes  ; 
but  language  never  deceives,  if  only  we  know 
how  to  question  it  aright. 

Such  investigations  as  these,  it  is  true,  lie 
plainly  out  of  your  sphere.  Not  so,  however, 
those  humbler  yet  not  less  interesting  inquiries, 
which  by  the  aid  of  any  tolerable  dictionary  you 
may  carry  on  into  the  past  history  of  your  own 
land,  as  attested  by  the  present  language  of  its 
people.  You  know  how  the  geologist  is  able 
from  the  different  strata  and  deposits,  primary, 
secondary,  or  tertiary,  succeeding  one  another, 
which  he  meets,  to  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  the 
successive  physical  changes  through  which  a 
region  has  passed  ;  is,  so  to  say,  in  a  condition  to 
preside  at  those  past  changes,  to  measure  the 
forces  that  were  at  work  to  produce  them,  and 
almost  to  indicate  their  date.  Now  with  such  a 
language  as  the  English  before  us,  bearing  as  it 
does  the  marks  and  footprints  of  great  revolutions 
profoundly  impressed  upon  it,  we  may  carry  on 
moral  and  historical  researches  precisely  analo- 
gous to  his.     Here  too  are  strata  and  deposits, 

negroes  of  Hayti  speak  French,  and  various  American 
tribes  have  exchanged  their  own  idioms  for  Spanish  and 
Portuguese.  See  upon  this  matter  Sayce's  Principles  of 
Co?nparaiive  Philology ;  pp.  175-181. 


126  On  the  History  in  Words. 


not  of  gravel  and  chalk,  sandstone  and  limestone, 
but  of  Celtic,  Latin,  Low  German,  Danish,  Norman 
words,  and  then  once  more  Latin  and  French, 
with  slighter  intrusions  from  many  other  quar- 
ters :  and  any  one  with  skill  to  analyse  the  lan- 
guage might,  up  to  a  certain  point,  re-create  for 
himself  the  history  of  the  people  speaking  that 
language,  might  with  tolerable  accuracy  appre- 
ciate the  divers  elements  out  of  which  that  people 
was  made  up,  in  what  proportion  these  were 
mingled,  and  in  what  succession  they  followed, 
one  upon  the  other. 

Would  he  trace,  for  example,  the  relation  in 
which  the  English  and  Norman  occupants  of  this 
land  stood  to  one  another  ?  An  account  of  this, 
in  the  main  as  accurate  as  it  would  be  certainly 
instructive,  might  be  drawn  from  an  intelligent 
study  of  the  contributions  which  they  have 
severally  made  to  the  English  language,  as  be- 
queathed to  us  jointly  by  them  both.  Supposing 
all  other  records  to  have  perished,  we  might  still 
work  out  and  almost  reconstruct  the  history  by 
these  aids ;  even  as  now,  when  so  many  docu- 
ments, so  many  institutions  survive,  this  must 
still  be  accounted  the  most  important,  and  that 
of  which  the  study  will  introduce  us,  as  no  other 
can,  into  the  innermost  heart  and  life  of  large 
periods  of  our  history. 

Nor,  indeed,  is  it  hard  to  see  why  the  lan- 
guage must  contain  such  instruction  as  this, 
when  we  a  little  realize  to  ourselves  the  stages 


iv-  Saxon  and  Norman.  127 

by  which  it  has  reached  us  in  its  present 
shape.  There  was  a  time  when  the  languages 
which  the  English  and  the  Norman  severally 
spoke,  existed  each  by  the  side  of,  but  un- 
mingled  with,  the  other ;  one,  that  of  the  small 
dominant  class,  the  other  that  of  the  great  body 
of  the  people.  By  degrees,  however,  with  the 
reconciliation  and  partial  fusion  of  the  two 
races,  the  two  languages  effected  a  transaction  ; 
one  indeed  prevailed  over  the  other,  but  at  the 
same  time  received  a  multitude  of  the  words  of 
that  other  into  its  own  bosom.  At  once  there 
would  exist  duplicates  for  many  things.  But  as 
in  popular  speech  two  words  will  not  long  exist 
side  by  side  to  designate  the  same  thing,  it 
became  a  question  how  the  relative  claims  of 
the  English  and  Norman  word  should  adjust 
themselves,  which  should  remain,  which  should 
be  dropped  ;  or,  if  not  dropped,  should  be  trans- 
ferred to  some  other  object,  or  express  some 
other  relation.  It  is  not  of  course  meant  that 
this  was  ever  formally  proposed,  or  as  something 
to  be  settled  by  agreement ;  but  practically  one 
was  to  be  taken  and  one  left.  Which  was  it 
that  should  maintain  its  ground  ?  Evidently, 
where  a  word  was  often  on  the  lips  of  one  race, 
its  equivalent  seldom  on  those  of  the  other,  where 
it  intimately  cohered  with  the  whole  manner  of 
life  of  one,  was  only  remotely  in  contact  with 
that  of  the  other,  where  it  laid  strong  hold  on 
one,  and  only  slight  on  the  other,  the  issue  could 


128  On  the  History  in  Words.  lbct. 

not  be  doubtful.  In  several  cases  the  matter 
was  simpler  still :  it  was  not  that  one  word  ex- 
pelled the  other,  or  that  rival  claims  had  to  be 
adjusted  ;  but  that  there  never  had  existed  more 
than  one  word,  the  thing  which  that  word  noted 
having  been  quite  strange  to  the  other  section 
of  the  nation. 

Here  is  the  explanation  of  the  assertion 
made  just  now — namely,  that  we  might  almost 
reconstruct  our  history,  so  far  as  it  turns  upon 
the  Norman  Conquest,  by  an  analysis  of  our 
present  language,  a  mustering  of  its  words  in 
groups,  and  a  close  observation  of  the  nature 
and  character  of  those  which  the  two  races  have 
severally  contributed  to  it.  Thus  we  should 
confidently  conclude  that  the  Norman  was  the 
ruling  race,  from  the  noticeable  fact  that  all 
the  words  of  dignity,  state,  honour,  and  pre- 
eminence, with  one  remarkable  exception  (to 
be  adduced  presently),  descend  to  us  from 
them — *  sovereign,'  '  sceptre,'  '  throne,'  '  realm,' 
'royalty,'  'homage,'  'prince,'  'duke,'  'count,' 
('earl'  indeed  is  Scandinavian,  though  he  must 
borrow  his  '  countess '  from  the  Norman), '  chan- 
cellor,' '  treasurer,'  '  palace,'  '  castle,'  '  dome,'  and 
a  multitude  more.  At  the  same  time  the  one 
remarkable  exception  of  'king'  would  make  us, 
even  did  we  know  nothing  of  the  actual  facts, 
suspect  that  the  chieftain  of  this  ruling  race 
came  in  not  upon  a  new  title,  not  as  overthrow- 
ing a  former  dynasty,  but  claiming  to  be  in  the 


«v.  Saxon  and  Norman.  129 

rightful  line  of  its  succession  ;  that  the  true 
continuity  of  the  nation  had  not,  in  fact  any 
more  than  in  word,  been  entirely  broken,  but 
survived,  in  due  time  to  assert  itself  anew. 

And  yet,  while  the  statelier  superstructure  of 
the  language,  almost  all  articles  of  luxury,  all 
having  to  do  with  the  chase,  with  chivalry,  with 
personal  adornment,  are  Norman  throughout ; 
with  the  broad  basis  of  the  language,  and  there- 
fore of  the  life,  it  is  otherwise.  The  great  features 
of  nature,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  earth,  water,  and 
fire  ;  the  divisions  of  time  ;  three  out  of  the  four 
seasons,  spring,  summer,  and  winter ;  the  fea- 
tures of  natural  scenery,  the  words  used  in 
earliest  childhood,  the  simpler  emotions  of  the 
mind ;  all  the  prime  social  relations,  father, 
mother,  husband,  wife,  son,  daughter,  brother, 
sister, — these  are  of  native  growth  and  un- 
borrowed. '  Palace '  and  '  castle '  may  have 
reached  us  from  the  Norman,  but  to  the  Saxon 
we  owe  far  dearer  names,  the  '  house,'  the  '  roof,' 
the  '  home,'  the  '  hearth.'  His  '  board  '  too,  and 
often  probably  it  was  no  more,  has  a  more 
hospitable  sound  than  the  'table'  of  his  lord. 
His  sturdy  arms  turn  the  soil  ;  he  is  the  '  boor,' 
the  '  hind,'  the  '  churl '  ;  or  if  his  Norman  mas- 
ter has  a  name  for  him,  it  is  one  which  on 
his  lips  becomes  more  and  more  a  title  of 
opprobrium  and  contempt,  the  '  villain.'  The 
instruments  used  in  cultivating  the  earth,  the 
1  plough,'   the  '  share,'  the  '  rake,'  the  '  scythe,' 


1 30         On  the  History  in  Words.  mcT. 

the  '  harrow,'  the  '  wain/  the  '  sickle,'  the  '  spade,' 
the  'sheaf,'  the  'barn,'  are  expressed  in  his  lan- 
guage ;  so  too  the  main  products  of  the  earth, 
as  wheat,  rye,  oats,  bere,  grass,  flax,  hay,  straw, 
weeds  ;  and  no  less  the  names  of  domestic 
animals.  You  will  remember,  no  doubt,  how  in 
the  matter  of  these  Wamba,  the  Saxon  jester  in 
Ivanhoe,  plays  the  philologer,  having  noted  that 
the  names  of  almost  all  animals,  so  long  as  they 
are  alive,  are  Saxon,  but  when  dressed  and  pre- 
pared for  food  become  Norman — a  fact,  he  would 
intimate,  not  very  wonderful  ;  for  the  Saxon 
hind  had  the  charge  and  labour  of  tending  and 
feeding  them,  but  only  that  they  might  appear 
on  the  table  of  his  Norman  lord.  Thus  'ox,' 
'steer,'  'cow,'  are  Saxon,  but  'beef  Norman; 
'calf  is  Saxon,  but  'veal'  Norman;  'sheep' 
is  Saxon,  but  '  mutton '  Norman :  so  it  is 
severally  with  '  swine  '  and  '  pork,'  '  deer  '  and 
'venison,'  'fowl'  and  'puHet.'  'Bacon,'  the 
only  flesh  which  perhaps  ever  came  within  the 
hind's  reach,  is  the  single  exception.*  Putting 
all  this  together,  with  much  more  of  the  same 
kind,  which  has  only  been  indicated  here,  we 
should  certainly  gather,  that  while  there  are 
manifest  tokens  preserved  in  our  language  of 
the  Saxon  having  been  for  a  season  an  inferior 
and  even  an  oppressed  race,  the  stable  elements 


*  [This  is  not  an  exception ;  see  the  New  English 
Dictionary  (s.v.).] 


iv.  Saxon  and  Norman.  131 

of  English  life,  however  overlaid  for  a  while,  had 
still  made  good  their  claim  to  be  the  ground- 
work of  the  after  nation  as  of  the  after  language ; 
and  to  the  justice  of  this  conclusion  all  other 
historic  records,  and  the  present  social  condition 
of  England,  consent  in  bearing  witness. 

Then  again,  who  could  doubt,  even  if  the 
fact  were  not  historically  attested,  that  the 
Arabs  were  the  arithmeticians,  the  astronomers, 
the  chemists,  the  merchants  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  he  had  once  noted  that  from  them  we 
have  gotten  these  words  and  so  many  others  like 
them — '  alchemy,'  '  alcohol,'  '  alembic,'  '  algebra,' 
'alkali,'  'almanack,'  'azimuth,'  'cypher,'  'elixir,' 
'magazine,'  'nadir,'  'tariff,'  'zenith,'  'zero'? — 
for  if  one  or  two  of  these  were  originally  Greek, 
they  reached  us  through  the  Arabic,  and  with 
tokens  of  their  transit  cleaving  to  them.  In 
like  manner,  even  though  history  were  silent  on 
the  matter,  we  might  conclude,  and  we  know 
that  we  should  rightly  conclude,  that  the  origins 
of  the  monastic  system  are  to  be  sought  in  the 
Greek  and  not  in  the  Latin  branch  of  the  Church, 
seeing  that  with  hardly  an  exception  the  words 
expressing  the  constituent  elements  of  the  sys- 
tem, as  '  anchorite,'  '  archimandrite,'  '  ascetic,' 
'  cenobite,'  '  hermit,'  '  monastery,'  '  monk,'  are 
Greek  and  not  Latin. 

But  the  study  of  words  will  throw  rays  of 
light  upon  a  past  infinitely  more  remote  than 
any  which  I  have  suggested  here,  will  reveal  to 

K   2 


132  On  the  History  in  Words.         lect. 

us  secrets  of  the  past,  which  else  must  have  been 
lost  to  us  for  ever.  Thus  it  must  be  a  question 
of  profound  interest  for  as  many  as  count  the 
study  of  man  to  be  far  above  every  other  study, 
to  ascertain  what  point  of  culture  that  Indo- 
European  race  of  which  we  come,  the  stirps 
generosa  et  historica  of  the  world,  as  Coleridge 
has  called  it,  had  attained,  while  it  was  dwelling 
still  as  one  family  in  its  common  home.  No 
voices  of  history,  the  very  faintest  voices  of  tra- 
dition, reach  us  from  ages  so  far  removed  from 
our  own.  But  in  the  silence  of  all  other  voices 
there  is  one  voice  which  makes  itself  heard, 
and  which  can  tell  us  much.  Where  Indian, 
and  Greek,  and  Latin,  and  Teutonic  designate 
some  object  by  the  same  word,  and  where  it 
can  be  clearly  shown  that  they  did  not,  at  a 
later  day,  borrow  that  word  one  from  the  other, 
the  object,  we  may  confidently  conclude,  must 
have  been  familar  to  the  Indo-European  race, 
while  yet  these  several  groups  of  it  dwelt  as 
one  undivided  family  together.  Now  they  have 
such  common  words  for  the  chief  domestic  ani- 
mals— for  ox,  for  sheep,  for  horse,  for  dog,  lor 
goose,  and  for  many  more.  From  this  we  have 
a  right  to  gather  that  before  the  migrations 
began,  they  had  overlived  and  outgrown  the 
f.shing  and  hunting  stages  of  existence,  and 
entered  on  the  pastoral.  They  have  not  all  the 
same  words  for  the  main  products  of  the  earth, 
as  for  corn,  wheat,  barley,  wine  ;  it  is  tolerably 


iv.  Language  the  Oldest  History.       I* 


JO 


evident  therefore  that  they  had  not  entered  on 
the  agricultural  stage.  So  too  from  the  absence 
of  names  in  common  for  the  principal  metals, 
we  have  a  right  to  argue  that  they  had  not 
arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  the  working  of 
these. 

On  the  other  hand,  identical  names  for  dress, 
for  house,  for  door,  for  garden,  for  numbers  as 
far  as  a  hundred,  for  the  primary  relations  of 
the  family,  as  father,  mother,  brother,  sister, 
son,  daughter,  for  the  Godhead,  testify  that  the 
common  stock,  intellectual  and  moral,  was  not 
small  which  they  severally  took  with  them  when 
they  went  their  way,  each  to  set  up  for  itself 
and  work  out  its  own  destinies  in  its  own  ap- 
pointed region  of  the  earth.*  This  common 
stock  may,  indeed,  have  been  much  larger  than 
these  investigations  declare  ;  for  a  word,  once 
common  to  all  these  languages,  may  have  sur- 
vived only  in  one  ;  or  possibly  may  have  perished 
in  all.  Larger  it  may  very  well,  but  poorer  it 
cannot,  have  been.f 


*  See  Brugmann,  Grundriss  der  verghichenden  Gram- 
tnatik  der  indogermanischen  Sprachen  (1886),  §  2. 

t  Ozanam  {Les  Germains  avant  le  Christianisme,  p. 
155)  :  Dans  le  vocabulaire  d'une  langue  on  a  tout  le  spec- 
tacle d'une  civilisation.  On  y  voit  ce  qu'un  peuple  sait 
des  choses  invisibles,  si  les  notions  de  Dieu,  de  Fame,  du 
devoir,  sont  assez  pures  chez  lui  pour  ne  souffrir  que  des 
termes  exacts.  On  mesure  la  puissance  de  ses  in- 
stitutions par  le  nombre  et  la  propriety  des  termes 
qu'elles  veulent  pour  leur  service  ;  la  liturgie  a  ses  paroles 


1 34         On  the  History  in  Words.  lect. 


This  is  one  way  in  which  words,  by  their 
presence  or  their  absence,  may  teach  us  history 
which  else  we  now  can  never  know.  I  pass  to 
other  ways. 

There  are  vast  harvests  of  historic  lore  gar- 
nered often  in  single  words  ;  important  facts 
which  they  at  once  proclaim  and  preserve  ;  these 
too  such  as  sometimes  have  survived  nowhere 
else  but  in  them.  How  much  history  lies  in 
the  word  '  church.'  I  see  no  sufficient  reason  to 
dissent  from  those  who  derive  it  from  the  Greek 
/cvpia/cov,  'that  which  pertains  to  the  Lord,'  or 
1  the  house  which  is  the  Lord's.'  It  is  true  that 
a  difficulty  meets  us  at  the  threshold  here.  How 
explain  the  presence  of  a  Greek  word  in  the 
vocabulary  of  our  Teutonic  forefathers?  for  that 
we  do  not  derive  it  immediately  from  the  Greek, 
is  certain.  What  contact,  direct  or  indirect,  be- 
tween the  languages  will  account  for  this  ?  The 
explanation  is  curious.  While  Angles,  Saxons, 
and  other  tribes  of  the  Teutonic  stock  were 
almost  universally  converted  through  contact 
with  the  Latin  Church  in  the  western  provinces 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  or  by  its  missionaries, 


sacramentelles,  la  procedure  a  ses  formules.  Enfin,  si  ce 
peuple  a  etudie"  la  nature,  il  faut  voir  a  quel  point  il  en  a 
penetre  les  secrets,  par  quelle  variete  d'expressions,  par 
quels  sons  flatteurs  ou  energiques,  il  a  cherche-  a  decrire 
les  divers  aspects  du  ciel  et  de  la  terre,  a  faire,  pour 
ainsi  dire,  l'inventaire  des  richesses  temporelles  dont  il 
depose. 


«*«  Church  from  whence  derived.        135 

some  Goths  on  the  Lower  Danube  had  been 
brought  at  an  earlier  date  to  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  by  Greek  missionaries  from  Constan- 
tinople ;  and  this  KvpcaKov,  or  'church,'  did,  with 
certain  other  words,  pass  over  from  the  Greek 
to  the  Gothic  tongue ;  these  Goths,  the  first 
converted  and  the  first  therefore  with  a  Christian 
vocabulary,  lending  the  word  in  their  turn  to 
the  other  German  tribes,  to  our  Anglo-Saxon 
forefathers  among  the  rest ;  and  by  this  circuit 
it  has  come  round  from  Constantinople  to  us.* 
Or  again,  interrogate  'pagan '  and '  paganism,' 
and  you  will  find  important  history  in  them.  You 
are  aware  that  '  pagani,'  derived  from  '  pagus,'  a 
village,  had  at  first  no  religious  significance,  but 
designated  the  dwellers  in  hamlets  and  villages 


*  The  passage  most  illustrative  of  the  parentage  of  the 
word  is  from  Walafrid  Strabo  (about  A.D.  840)  :  Ab  ipsis 
autem  Graecis  Kyrch  a  Kyrios,  et  alia  multa  accepimus. 
Sicut  domus  Dei  Basilica,  i.e.  Regia  a  Rege,  sic  etiam 
Kyrica,  i.e.  Dominica  a  Domino,  nuncupatur.  Si  autem 
quaeritur,  qui  occasione  ad  nos  vestigia  ha?c  graecitatis 
advenerint,  dicendum  praecipue  a  Gothis,  qui  et  Getae, 
cum  eo  tempore,  quo  ad  fidem  Christi  perducti  sunt,  in 
Grascorum  provinciis  commorantes,  nostrum,  i.e.  theoti- 
scum  sermonem  habuerint.  Cf.  Rudolf  von  Raumer, 
Einwirkung  des  Christenthums  anf  die  Althochdeutsche 
Sfirache,  p.  288  ;  Niedner,  Kirch.  Gesckichte,  p.  2.  [The 
German  knowledge  and  use  of  the  word  may  be  ascribed 
to  the  German  mercenaries  who  were  hired  for  military 
service  under  the  Empire  in  the  regions  of  Cappadocia 
and  Laodicea  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century ;  see 
New  English  Dictionary,  s.  v.  Church.] 


136  On  the  History  in  Words.         lkct. 

as  distinguished  from  the  inhabitants  of  towns 
and  cities.  It  was,  indeed,  often  applied  to  all 
civilians  as  contradistinguished  from  the  military 
caste  ;  and  this  fact  may  have  had  a  certain  in- 
fluence, when  the  idea  of  the  faithful  as  soldiers 
of  Christ  was  strongly  realized  in  the  minds  of 
men.  But  it  was  mainly  in  the  following  way 
that  it  grew  to  be  a  name  for  those  alien  from 
the  faith  of  Christ.  The  Church  fixed  itself  first 
in  the  seats  and  centres  of  intelligence,  in  the 
towns  and  cities  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  in  them 
its  earliest  triumphs  were  won  ;  while,  long  after 
these  had  accepted  the  truth,  heathen  supersti- 
tions and  idolatries  lingered  on  in  the  obscure 
hamlets  and  villages  ;  so  that  '  pagans,'  or  vil- 
lagers, came  to  be  applied  to  all  the  remaining 
votaries  of  the  old  and  decayed  superstitions, 
although  not  all,  but  only  most  of  them,  were 
such.  In  an  edict  of  the  Emperor  Valentinian, 
of  date  A.D.  368,  '  pagan '  first  assumes  this 
secondary  meaning.  '  Heathen'  has  run  a  course 
curiously  similar.  When  the  Christian  faith  first 
found  its  way  into  Germany,  it  was  the  wild 
dwellers  on  the  heaths  who  were  the  slowest  to 
accept  it,  the  last  probably  whom  it  reached. 
One  hardly  expects  an  etymology  in  Piers 
Plowman  ;  but  this  is  there  : 

•  Hethene  is  to  mene  after  hetkt 
And  untiled  erthe.' 

B.  15,  451,  Skeat's  ed.  (Clarendon  Press). 

Here,  then,  are  two  instructive  notices — one,  the 


iv.  Pagan,  Heathen.  137 

historic  fact  that  the  Church  of  Christ  planted 
itself  first  in  the  haunts  of  learning  and  intelli- 
gence; another,  morally  more  significant,  that 
it  did  not  shun  discussion,  feared  not  to  en- 
counter the  wit  and  wisdom  of  this  world,  or  to 
expose  its  claims  to  the  searching  examination 
of  educated  men  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  had  its 
claims  first  recognized  by  them,  and  in  the  great 
cities  of  the  world  won  first  a  complete  triumph 
over  all  opposing  powers.* 

I  quoted  in  my  first  lecture  the  saying  of 
one  who,  magnifying  the  advantage  to  be  de- 
rived from  such  studies  as  ours,  did  not  fear  to 
affirm  that  oftentimes  more  might  be  learned 
from  the  history  of  a  word  than  from  the  history 
of  a  campaign.  Thus  follow  some  Latin  word, 
'  imperator  '  for  example  ;  as  Dean  Merivale  has 
followed  it  in  his  History  of  the  Romans^  and 
you  will  own  as  much.  But  there  is  no  need  to 
look  abroad.  Words  of  our  own  out  of  number, 
such  as '  barbarous,' '  benefice,' '  clerk,' '  common- 
sense,'  '  romance,'  '  sacrament,'  '  sophist,'  \  would 
prove  the  truth  of  the  assertion.     Let  us  take 


*  There  is  a  good  note  on  '  pagan '  in  Gibbon's  Decline 
mid  Fall,  c.  21,  at  the  end  ;  and  in  Grimm's  Deutsche 
Mythol.  p.  1 198  ;  and  the  history  of  the  changes  in  the 
word's  use  is  well  traced  in  another  interest  by  Mill, 
Logic,  vol.  ii.  p.  271. 

t  Vol.  iii.  pp.  441-452. 

X  For  a  history  of '  sophist '  see  Sir  Alexander  Grant's 
Ethics  of  Aristotle,  2nd  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  106,  sqq. 


138  On  the  History  i?i  Words.  lect. 

'  sacrament ' ;  its  history,  while  it  carries  us  far, 
will  yet  carry  us  by  ways  full  of  instruction  ; 
and  these  not  the  less  instructive,  while  we  re- 
strict our  inquiries  to  the  external  history  of  the 
word.  We  find  ourselves  first  among  the  forms 
of  Roman  law.  The  •  sacramentum '  appears 
there  as  the  deposit  or  pledge,  which  in  certain 
suits  plaintiff  and  defendant  were  alike  bound 
to  make,  and  whereby  they  engaged  themselves 
to  one  another ;  the  loser  of  the  suit  forfeiting 
his  pledge  to  sacred  temple  uses,  from  which 
fact  the  name  '  sacramentum,'  or  thing  conse- 
crated, was  first  derived.  The  word,  as  next 
employed,  plants  us  amidst  the  military  affairs 
of  Rome,  designating  the  military  oath  by  which 
the  Roman  soldiers  mutually  engaged  them- 
selves at  the  first  enlisting  never  to  desert  their 
standards,  or  turn  their  backs  upon  the  enemy, 
or  abandon  their  general, — this  employment 
teaching  us  the  sacredness  which  the  Romans 
attached  to  their  military  engagements,  and 
going  far  to  account  for  their  victories.  The 
word  was  then  transferred  from  this  military 
oath  to  any  solemn  oath  whatsoever.  These 
three  stages  '  sacramentum '  had  already  passed 
through,  before  the  Church  claimed  it  for  her 
own,  or  indeed  herself  existed  at  all.  Her  early 
writers,  out  of  a  sense  of  the  sacredness  and 
solemnity  of  the  oath,  transferred  this  name  to 
almost  any  act  of  special  solemnity  or  sanctity, 
above  all  to  such  mysteries  as  intended  more 


IV. 


Sacrament  139 


than  met  eye  or  ear.  For  them  the  Incarnation 
was  a  '  sacrament,'  the  lifting  up  of  the  brazen 
serpent  was  a  '  sacrament,'  the  giving  of  the 
manna,  and  many  things  more.  It  is  well  to  be 
acquainted  with  this  phase  of  the  word's  history, 
depriving  as  it  does  of  all  convincing  power  those 
passages  quoted  by  Roman  Catholic  controver- 
sialists from  early  church-writers  in  proof  of 
their  seven  sacraments.  It  is  quite  true  that 
these  may  have  called  marriage  a  '  sacrament,' 
and  confirmation  a  'sacrament,'  and  we  may 
reach  the  Roman  seven  without  difficulty ;  but 
then  they  called  many  things  more,  which  even 
the  theologians  of  Rome  do  not  include  in  the 
'sacraments'  properly  so  called,  by  the  same 
name  ;  and  this  evidence,  proving  too  much,  in 
fact  proves  nothing  at  all.  One  other  stage  in 
the  word's  history  remains  ;  its  limitation,  namely, 
to  the  two  '  sacraments,'  properly  so  called,  of 
the  Christian  Church.  A  reminiscence  of  the 
employment  of  'sacrament,'  an  employment 
which  still  survived,  to  signify  the  plighted  troth 
of  the  Roman  soldier  to  his  captain  and  com- 
mander, was  that  which  had  most  to  do  with  the 
transfer  of  the  word  to  Baptism  ;  wherein  we, 
with  more  than  one  allusion  to  this  oath  of 
theirs,  pledge  ourselves  to  fight  manfully  under 
Christ's  banner,  and  to  continue  his  faithful 
soldiers  and  servants  to  our  life's  end  ;  while  the 
mysterious  character  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  was 
mainly  that  which  earned  for  it  this  name. 


140  On  the  History  i?i  Words.  lkt. 

We  have  already  found  history  imbedded  in 
the  word  '  frank ' ;  but  I  must  bring  forward  the 
Franks  again,  to  account  for  the  fact  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar,  that  in  the  East  not  French- 
men alone,  but  all  Europeans,  are  so  called. 
Why,  it  may  be  asked,  should  this  be?  This 
wide  use  of  '  Frank  '  dates  from  the  Crusades  ; 
Michaud,  the  chief  French  historian  of  these, 
finding  evidence  here  that  his  countrymen  took 
a  decided  lead,  as  their  gallantry  well  fitted 
them  to  do,  in  these  romantic  enterprises  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  impressed  themselves  so  strongly 
on  the  imagination  of  the  East  as  tlie  crusading 
nation  of  Europe,  that  their  name  was  extended 
to  all  the  warriors  of  Christendom.  He  is  not 
here  snatching  for  them  more  than  the  honour 
which  is  justly  theirs.  A  very  large  proportion 
of  the  noblest  Crusaders,  from  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 
to  St  Lewis,  as  of  others  who  did  most  to  bring 
these  enterprises  about,  as  Pope  Urban  II.,  as 
St.  Bernard,  were  French,  and  thus  gave,  in  a 
way  sufficiently  easy  to  explain,  an  appellation 
to  all.* 

To  the  Crusades  also,  and  to  the  intense 
hatred  which  they  roused  throughout  Christen- 
dom against  the  Mahcmedan  infidels,  we  owe 
'  miscreant,'  as  designating  one  to  whom  the 
vilest  principles  and  practices  are  ascribed.  A 
'miscreant,'  at  the  first,  meant  simply    a  mis- 


See  Fuller,  Holy  War,  b.  L  c  13. 


rv.        Aliscreant,  Assassin,  Cardinal.       141 

believer.  The  name  would  have  been  applied 
as  freely,  and  with  as  little  sense  of  injustice,  to 
the  royal-hearted  Saladin  as  to  the  vilest  wretch 
that  fought  in  his  armies.  By  degrees,  however, 
those  who  employed  it  tinged  it  more  and  more 
with  their  feeling  and  passion,  more  and  more 
lost  sight  of  its  primary  use,  until  they  used  it 
of  any  whom  they  regarded  with  feelings  of 
abhorrence,  such  as  those  which  they  enter- 
tained for  an  infidel  ;  just  as  '  Samaritan '  was 
employed  by  the  Jews  simply  as  a  term  of 
reproach,  and  with  no  thought  whether  he  on 
whom  it  was  fastened  was  in  fact  one  of  that 
detested  race  or  not ;  where  indeed  they  were 
quite  sure  that  he  was  not  (John  viii.  48).  'As- 
sassin,' also,  an  Arabic  word  whose  story  you 
will  find  no  difficulty  in  obtaining, — you  may- 
read  it  in  Gibbon,* — connects  itself  with  a 
romantic  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Crusades. 
Various  explanations  of  'cardinal'  have  been 
proposed,  which  should  account  for  the  appro- 
priation of  this  name  to  the  parochial  clergy-  of 
the  city  of  Rome  with  the  subordinate  bishops 
of  that  diocese.  This  appropriation  is  an  out- 
growth, and  a  standing  testimony,  of  the  measure- 
less assumptions  of  the  Roman  See.  One  of  the 
favourite  comparisons  by  which  that  See  was 
wont  to  set  out  its  relation  of  superiority  to  all 
other  Churches  of  Christendom  was  this ;  it  was 


•  Decline  and  Fall,  c.  64. 


142         0)1  the  History  in  Words.  wa. 

the  hinge,  or  'cardo,'  on  which  all  the  rest  of  the 
Church,  as  the  door,  at  once  depended  and 
turned.  It  followed  presently  upon  this  that  the 
clergy  of  Rome  were  •  cardinales,'  as  nearest  to, 
and  most  closely  connected  with,  him  who  was 
thus  the  hinge,  or  '  cardo,'  of  all.* 

'  Legend '  is  a  word  with  an  instructive  nis- 
tory.  We  all  have  some  notion  of  what  at  this 
day  a  '  legend '  means.  It  is  a  tale  which  is  not 
true,  which,  however  historic  in  form,  is  not 
historic  in  fact,  claims  no  serious  belief  for  itself. 
It  was  quite  otherwise  once.  By  this  name 
of  '  legends  '  the  annual  commemorations  of  the 
faith  and  patience  of  God's  saints  in  persecution 
and  death  were  originally  called  ;  these  legends 
in  this  title  which  they  bore  proclaiming  that 
they  were  worthy  to  be  read,  and  from  this 
worthiness  deriving  their  name.  At  a  later 
day,  as  corruptions  spread  through  the  Church, 
these  '  legends '  grew,  in  Hooker's  words,  '  to  be 
nothing  else  but  heaps  of  frivolous  and  scandal- 
ous vanities,'  having  been  •  even   with   disdain 


*  Thus  a  letter  professing  to  be  of  Pope  Anacletus  the 
First  in  the  first  century,  but  really  belonging  to  the  ninth  : 
Apostolioa  Sedes  cardo  et  caput  omnium  Ecclesiarum  a 
Domino  est  constituta  ;  et  sicut  cardine  ostium  regitur, 
sic  hujus  S.  Sedis  auctoritate  omnes  Ecclesife  reguntur. 
And  we  have  '  cardinal'  put  in  relation  with  this  'cardo' 
in  a  genuine  letter  of  Pope  Leo  IX.  :  Clerici  summae 
Sedis  Cardinales  dicuntur,  cardini  utique  illi  quo  cetera 
moventur,  vicinius  adh;erentes. 


IV 


Legend,  Dunce.  143 


thrown  out,  the  very  nests  which  bred  them 
abhorring  them.'  How  steeped  in  falsehood, 
and  to  what  an  extent,  according  to  Luther's 
indignant  turn  of  the  word,  the  'legends' 
(legende)  must  have  become  '  lyings '  (liigende), 
we  can  best  guess,  when  we  measure  the  moral 
forces  which  must  have  been  at  work,  before 
that  which  was  accepted  at  the  first  as  c  worthy 
to  be  read,'  should  have  been  felt  by  this  very 
name  to  announce  itself  as  most  unworthy,  as 
belonging  at  best  to  the  region  of  fable,  if  not  to 
that  of  actual  untruth. 

An  inquiry  into  the  pedigree  of  '  dunce '  lays 
open  to  us  an  important  page  in  the  intellectual 
history  of  Europe.  Certain  theologians  in  the 
Middle  Ages  were  termed  Schoolmen  ;  having 
been  formed  and  trained  in  the  cloister  and 
cathedral  schools  which  Charlemagne  and  his 
immediate  successors  had  founded.  These  were 
men  not  to  be  lightly  spoken  of,  as  they  often 
are  by  those  who  never  read  a  line  of  their  works, 
and  have  not  a  thousandth  part  of  their  wit ;  who 
moreover  little  guess  how  many  of  the  most 
familiar  words  which  they  employ,  or  misemploy, 
have  descended  to  them  from  these.  'Real,' 
1  virtual,'  '  entity,'  '  nonentity,'  '  equivocation,' 
'objective,'  'subjective,'  with  many  more  un- 
known to  classical  Latin,  but  now  almost  ne- 
cessities to  us,  were  first  coined  by  the  School- 
men ;  and,  passing  over  from  them  into  the 
speech  of  others  more  or  less  interested  in  their 


144         On  the  History  in  Words.         user. 


speculations,  have  gradually  filtered  through  the 
successive  strata  of  society,  till  now  some  of 
them  have  reached  to  quite  the  lowest.  At 
the  Revival  of  Learning,  however,  their  works 
fell  out  of  favour :  they  were  not  written  in 
classical  Latin  :  the  forms  into  which  their 
speculations  were  thrown  were  often  unattrac- 
tive ;  it  was  mainly  in  their  authority  that  the 
Roman  Church  found  support  for  her  perilled 
dogmas.  On  all  these  accounts  it  was  esteemed 
a  mark  of  intellectual  progress  to  have  broken 
with  them,  and  thrown  off  their  yoke.  Some, 
however,  still  clung  to  these  Schoolmen,  and  to 
one  in  particular,  John  Duns  Scotus,  the  most 
illustrious  teacher  of  the  Franciscan  Order.  Thus 
it  came  to  pass  that  many  times  an  adherent  of 
the  old  learning  would  seek  to  strengthen  his 
position  by  an  appeal  to  its  famous  doctor, 
familiarly  called  Duns  ;  while  those  of  the  new 
learning  would  contemptuously  rejoin,  '  Oh,  you 
are  a  Dunsman'  or  more  briefly,  '  You  are  a 
Dims,' — or,  '  This  is  a  piece  of  dimcery ' ;  and  in- 
asmuch as  the  new  learning  was  ever  enlisting 
more  and  more  of  the  genius  and  scholarship  of 
the  age  on  its  side,  the  title  became  more  and 
more  a  term  of  scorn.  '  Remember  ye  not,'  says 
Tyndal,  'how  within  this  thirty  years  and  far 
less,  the  old  barking  curs,  Dunce's  disciples,  and 
like  draff  called  Scotists,  the  children  of  dark- 
ness, raged  in  every  pulpit  against  Greek,  Latin, 
and  Hebrew  ? '    And  thus  from  that  conflict  long 


iv.  Dunce,  Mammetry.  145 

ago  extinct  between  the  old  and  the  new  learn- 
ing, that  strife  between  the  medieval  and  the 
modern  theology,  we  inherit  '  dunce '  and  '  dun- 
eery.'  The  lot  of  Duns,  it  must  be  confessed, 
has  been  a  hard  one^who,  whatever  his  merits 
as  a  teacher  of  Christian  truth,  was  assuredly 
one  of  the  keenest  and  most  subtle-witted  of 
men.  He,  the  '  subtle  Doctor'  by  pre-eminence, 
for  so  his  admirers  called  him, '  the  wittiest  of  the 
school-divines,'  as  Hooker  does  not  scruple  to 
style  him,  could  scarcely  have  anticipated,  and 
did  not  at  all  deserve,  that  his  name  should  be 
turned  into  a  by-word  for  invincible  stupidity. 

This  is  but  one  example  of  the  singular  for- 
tune waiting  upon  words.  We  have  another  of 
a  parallel  injustice,  in  the  use  which  '  mammetry,' 
a  contraction  of  *  Mahometry,'  obtained  in  our 
early  English.  Mahomedanism  being  the  most 
prominent  form  of  false  religion  with  which  our 
ancestors  came  in  contact,  *  mammetry '  was 
used,  up  to  and  beyond  the  Reformation,  to 
designate  first  any  false  religion,  and  then  the 
worship  of  idols ;  idolatry  being  proper  to,  and 
a  leading  feature  of,  most  of  the  false  religions  of 
the  world.  Men  did  not  pause  to  remember  that 
Mahomedanism  is  the  great  exception,  being  as  it 
is  a  protest  against  all  idol-worship  whatsoever  ; 
so  that  it  was  a  signal  injustice  to  call  an  idol  a 
'  mawmet '  or  a  Mahomet,  and  idolatry  '  mam- 
metry.' 

A  misnomer  such  as  this  may  remind  us  of  the 

L 


146         On  the  History  in  Words.  ukt. 

immense  importance  of  possessing  such  names 
for  things  as  shall  not  involve  or  suggest  an 
error.  We  have  already  seen  this  in  the  province 
of  the  moral  life;  but  in  other  regions  also  it 
nearly  concerns  us.  Resuming,  as  words  do,  the 
past,  shaping  the  future,  how  important  it  is 
that  significant  facts  or  tendencies  in  the  world's 
history  should  receive  their  right  names.  It  is  a 
corrupting  of  the  very  springs  and  sources  of 
knowledge,  when  we  bind  up  not  a  truth,  but  an 
error,  in  the  very  nomenclature  which  we  use. 
It  is  the  putting  of  an  obstacle  in  the  way,  which, 
however  imperceptibly,  is  yet  ever  at  work, 
hindering  any  right  apprehension  of  the  thing 
which  has  been  thus  erroneously  noted. 

Out  of  a  sense  of  this,  an  eminent  German 
scholar  of  the  last  century,  writing  On  the  In- 
fluence of  Opinions  on  Language,  did  not  stop 
here,  nor  make  this  the  entire  title  of  his  book, 
but  added  another  and  further  clause — and  on 
the  Influence  of  Language  on  Opinions  ;  *  the 
matter  which  fulfils  the  promise  of  this  latter 
clause  constituting  by  far  the  most  interesting 
and  original  portion  of  his  work :  for  while  the 
influence  of  opinions  on  words  is  so  little 
called  in  question,  that  the  assertion  of  it  sounds 
almost  like  a  truism,  this,  on  the  contrary,  of 
words  on  opinions,  would  doubtless  present  itself 


•  Von  dem  Einfluss  der  Meinungen  in  die  Sprache, 
und  der  Sprache  in  die  Afeimtngen,  von  J.  D.  Michaelis, 
Berlin,  1760. 


IV. 


Crystal.  147 


as  a  novelty  to  many.  And  yet  it  is  an  influence 
which  has  been  powerfully  felt  in  every  region  of 
human  knowledge,  in  science,  in  art,  in  morals,  in 
theology.  The  reactive  energy  of  words,  not 
merely  on  the  passions  of  men  (for  that  of  course), 
but  on  their  opinions  calmly  and  deliberately 
formed,  would  furnish  a  very  curious  chapter 
in  the  history  of  human  knowledge  and  human 


ignorance. 


Sometimes  words  with  no  fault  of  theirs,  for 
they  did  not  originally  involve  any  error,  will 
yet  draw  some  error  in  their  train  ;  and  of  that 
error  will  afterwards  prove  the  most  effectual 
bulwark  and  shield.  Let  me  instance — the 
author  just  referred  to  supplies  the  example — 
the  word  'crystal.'  The  strange  notion  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  the  thing,  current  among 
the  natural  philosophers  of  antiquity,  and  which 
only  two  centuries  ago  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
thought  it  worth  while  to  place  first  and  foremost 
among  the  Vulgar  Errors  that  he  undertook 
to  refute,  was  plainly  traceable  to  a  confusion 
occasioned  by  the  name.  Crystal,  as  men  sup- 
posed, was  ice  or  snow  which  had  undergone 
such  a  process  of  induration  as  wholly  and  for 
ever  to  have  lost  its  fluidity  :  *  and  Pliny,  backing 


*  Augustine :  Quid  est  crystallum  ?  Nix  est  glacie 
durata  per  multos  annos,  ita  ut  a  sole  vel  igne  facile  dis- 
solvi  non  possit.  So  too  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
tragedy  of  Va/entim'an,  a  chaste  matron  is  said  to  be 
1  cold  as  crystal  never  to  be  thawed  again? 

L  2 


1 48         On  the  History  in  Words.         lect. 

up  one  mistake  by  another,  affirmed  that  it  was 
only  found  in  regions  of  extreme  cold.  The  fact 
is,  that  the  Greek  word  for  crystal  originally 
signified  ice  ;  but  after  a  while  was  also  imparted 
to  that  diaphanous  quartz  which  has  so  much 
the  look  of  ice,  and  which  alone  we  call  by  this 
name ;  and  then  in  a  little  while  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  the  two,  having  the  same  name, 
were  in  fact  the  same  substance ;  and  this  mis- 
take it  took  ages  to  correct. 

Natural  history  abounds  in  legends.  In  the 
word  '  leopard '  one  of  these  has  been  perma- 
nently bound  up  ;  the  error,  having  first  given 
birth  to  the  name,  being  afterwards  itself  main- 
tained and  propagated  by  it.  The  leopard,  as 
is  well  known,  was  not  for  the  Greek  and  Latin 
zoologists  a  species  by  itself,  but  a  mongrel  birth 
of  the  male  panther  or  pard  and  the  lioness  ; 
and  in  '  leopard '  or  '  lion-pard,'  this  fabled 
double  descent  is  expressed.  '  Cockatrice ' 
embodies  a  somewhat  similar  fable  ;  the  fable 
however  in  this  case  having  been  invented  to 
account  for  the  name.* 

It   was    Eichhorn   who   first   suggested  the 


*  [The  word  cockatrice  occurs  in  various  forms  in 
Middle  English  in  the  sense  of  a  serpent,  often  being 
used  to  render  the  Latin  basiliscus.  In  the  Pro7>iptorium 
the  word  cocairyse  is  explained  by  two  words,  basiliscus 
and  cocodrillus  (i.e.  the  crocodile).  See  Mayhew-Skeat, 
Middle  English  Dictionary,  Wright,  Bible  Word  Book, 
and  the  New  English  Dictionary^ 


tv.  Semitic,  Gothic.  149 


calling  of  a  certain  group  of  languages,  which 
stand  in  a  marked  contradistinction  to  the  Indo- 
European  or  Aryan  family,  by  the  common 
name  of  «  Semitic.'  A  word  which  should  include 
all  these  was  wanting,  and  this  one  was  handy 
and  has  made  its  fortune ;  at  the  same  time  im- 
plying, as  ■  Semitic '  does,  that  these  are  all  lan- 
guages spoken  by  races  which  are  descended 
from  Shem,  it  is  eminently  calculated  to  mislead. 
There  are  non-Semitic  races,  the  Phoenicians 
for  example,  which  have  spoken  a  Semitic  lan- 
guage ;  there  are  Semitic  races  which  have  not 
spoken  one.  Against  '  Indo-European  *  the 
same  objection  may  be  urged ;  seeing  that 
several  languages  are  European,  that  is,  spoken 
within  the  limits  of  Europe,  as  the  Maltese, 
the  Finnish,  the  Hungarian,  the  Basque,  the  Turk- 
ish, which  lie  altogether  outside  of  this  group. 

1  Gothic  '  is  plainly  a  misnomer,  and  has  often 
proved  a  misleader  as  well,  when  applied  to  a 
style  of  architecture  which  belongs  not  to  one, 
but  to  all  the  Germanic  tribes  ;  which,  more- 
over, did  not  come  into  existence  till  many 
centuries  after  any  people  called  Goths  had 
ceased  from  the  earth.  Those,  indeed,  who  first 
called  this  medieval  architecture  '  Gothic,'  had 
no  intention  of  ascribing  to  the  Goths  the  first 
invention  of  it,  however  this  language  may  seem 
now  to  bind  up  in  itself  an  assertion  of  the  kind. 
'  Gothic  '  was  at  first  a  mere  random  name  of 


150  On  the  History  in  Words.         lect. 

contempt.  The  Goths,  with  the  Vandals,  being 
the  standing  representatives  of  the  rude  in  man- 
ners and  barbarous  in  taste,  the  critics  who 
would  fain  throw  scorn  on  this  architecture  as 
compared  with  that  classical  Italian  which  alone 
seemed  worthy  of  their  admiration,*  called  it 
1  Gothic,'  meaning  rude  and  barbarous  thereby. 
We  who  recognize  in  this  Gothic  architecture 
the  most  wondrous  and  consummate  birth  of 
genius  in  one  region  of  art,  find  it  hard  to 
believe  that  this  was  once  a  mere  title  of  slight 
and  scorn,  and  sometimes  wrongly  assume  a 
reference  in  the  word  to  the  people  among 
whom  first  it  arose. 

'  Classical '  and  '  romantic,'  names  given  to 
opposing  schools  of  literature  and  art,  contain 
an  absurd  antithesis  ;  and  either  say  nothing  at 
all,  or  say  something  erroneous.  '  Revival  of 
Learning'  is  a  phrase  only  partially  true  when 
applied  to  that  mighty  intellectual  movement 
in  Western  Europe  which  marked  the  fifteenth 
century  and  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth.  A 
revival  there  might  be,  and  indeed  there  was,  of 


*  The  name,  as  the  designation  of  a  style  of  architec- 
ture, came  to  us  from  Italy.  Thus  Fuller  in  his  Wor- 
thies :  '  Let  the  Italians  deride  our  English  and  condemn 
them  for  Gothish  buildings.'  See  too  a  very  curious  ex- 
pression of  men's  sentiments  about  Gothic  architecture  as 
simply  equivalent  to  barbarous,  in  Phillips's  New  World 
0/  Words,  1706,  s.  v.  '  Gothick.' 


iv.  Some  Words  Misnomers.  151 


Greek  learning  at  that  time ;  but  there  could 
not  be  properly  affirmed  a  revival  of  Latin, 
inasmuch  as  it  had  never  been  dead;  or,  even  as 
those  who  dissent  from  this  statement  must  own, 
had  revived  nearly  two  centuries  before.  '  Re- 
naissance,' applied  in  France  to  the  new  direc- 
tion which  art  took  about  the  age  of  Francis  the 
First,  is  another  question-begging  word.  Very 
many  would  entirely  deny  that  the  bringing 
back  of  an  antique  pagan  spirit,  and  of  pagan 
forms  as  the  utterance  of  this,  into  Christian  art 
was  a  '  renaissance '  or  new  birth  of  it  at  all. 

But  inaccuracy  in  naming  may  draw  after  it 
more  serious  mischief  in  regions  more  important. 
Nowhere  is  accuracy  more  vital  than  in  words 
having  to  do  with  the  chief  facts  and  objects  of 
our  faith ;  for  such  words,  as  Coleridge  has 
observed,  are  never  inert,  but  constantly  exer- 
cise an  immense  reactive  influence,  whether 
men  know  it  or  not,  on  such  as  use  them,  or 
often  hear  them  used  by  others.  The  so- 
called  'Unitarians,'  claiming  by  this  name  of 
theirs  to  be  asserters  of  the  unity  of  the  God- 
head, claim  that  which  belongs  to  us  by  far 
better  right  than  to  them  ;  which,  indeed,  be- 
longing of  fullest  right  to  us,  does  not  properly 
belong  to  them  at  all.  I  should,  therefore, 
without  any  intention  of  offence,  refuse  the 
name  to  them  ;  just  as  I  should  decline,  by 
calling  those  of  the  Roman  Obedience  '  Catho- 


H2 


On  the  History  in  Words. 


lies,'  to  give  up  the  whole  question  at  issue 
between  them  and  us.  So,  also,  were  I  one  of 
them,  I  should  never,  however  convenient  it 
might  sometimes  prove,  consent  to  call  the  great 
religious  movement  of  Europe  in  the  sixteenth 
century  the  '  Reformation.'  Such  in  our  esteem 
it  was,  and  in  the  deepest,  truest  sense ;  a 
shaping  anew  of  things  that  were  amiss  in  the 
Church.  But  how  any  who  esteem  it  a  disastrous, 
and,  on  their  parts  who  brought  it  about,  a  most 
guilty  schism,  can  consent  to  call  it  by  this  name, 
has  always  surprised  me. 

Let  me  urge  on  you  here  the  importance  of 
seeking  in  every  case  to  acquaint  yourselves 
with  the  circumstances  under  which  any  body 
of  men  who  have  played  an  important  part  in 
history,  above  all  in  the  history  of  your  own 
land,  obtained  the  name  by  which  they  were 
afterwards  themselves  willing  to  be  known,  or 
which  was  used  for  their  designation  by  others. 
This  you  may  do  as  a  matter  of  historical  in- 
quiry, and  keeping  entirely  aloof  in  spirit  from 
the  bitterness,  the  contempt,  the  calumny,  out 
of  which  very  frequently  these  names  were  first 
imposed.  Whatever  of  scorn  or  wrong  may  have 
been  at  work  in  them  who  coined  or  gave  cur- 
rency to  the  name,  the  name  itself  can  never 
without  serious  loss  be  neglected  by  any  who 
would  truly  understand  the  moral  significance 
of  the  thing ;  for  always  something,  oftentimes 


■».  Party  Names.  153 

much,  may  be  learned  from  it.  Learn,  then, 
about  each  one  of  these  names  which  you  meet 
in  your  studies,  whether  it  was  one  that  men 
gave  to  themselves  ;  or  one  imposed  on  them  by 
others,  but  never  recognized  by  them  ;  or  one 
that,  first  imposed  by  others,  was  yet  in  course 
of  time  admitted  and  allowed  by  themselves. 
We  have  examples  in  all  these  kinds.  Thus 
the  '  Gnostics '  call  themselves  such  ;  the  name 
was  of  their  own  devising,  and  declared  that 
whereof  they  made  their  boast ;  it  was  the  same 
with  the  '  Cavaliers  '  of  our  Civil  War.  '  Quaker,' 
'  Puritan,'  '  Roundhead,'  were  all,  on  the  con- 
trary, names  devised  by  others,  and  never 
accepted  by  those  to  whom  they  were  attached. 
To  the  third  class  '  Whig '  and  '  Tory '  belong. 
These  were  nicknames  originally  of  bitterest 
party  hate,  withdrawn  from  their  earlier  use,  and 
fastened  by  two  political  bodies  in  England 
each  on  the  other,*  the  '  Whig '  being  properly  a 
Scottish  covenanter,!  the  'Tory'  an  Irish  bog- 
trotting  freebooter  ;  while  yet  these  nicknames 
in  tract  of  time  so  lost  and  let  go  what  was 
offensive  about  them,  that  in  the  end  they  were 
adopted  by  the  very  parties  themselves.  Not 
otherwise  the  German  '  Lutherans  '  were  origin- 


*  In  North's  Examen.  p.  321,  is  a  very  lively,  though 
not  a  very  impartial,  account  of  the  rise  of  these  names. 

t  [For  a  full  account  of  the  name  see  Nares,  and 
Todd's  Johnson.] 


154         On  the  History  in  Words.         ««•. 

ally  so  called  by  their  antagonists.*  '  Methodist,' 
in  like  manner,  was  a  title  not  first  taken  by  the 
followers  of  Wesley,  but  fastened  on  them  by 
others,  while  yet  they  have  been  subsequently 
willing,  though  with  a  certain  reserve,  to  accept 
and  to  be  known  by  it.  '  Momiers  '  or  '  Mum- 
mers,' a  name  in  itself  of  far  greater  offence,  has 
obtained  in  Switzerland  something  of  the  same 
allowance.  Exactly  in  the  same  way '  Capuchin  ' 
was  at  first  a  jesting  nickname,  given  by  the 
gamins  in  the  streets  to  that  reformed  branch  of 
the  Franciscans  which  afterwards  accepted  it  as 
their  proper  designation.  It  was  provoked  by 
the  peaked  and  pointed  hood  (' cappuccio,'  'cap- 
pucino')  which  they  wore.  The  story  of  the 
'  Gueux,'  or  '  Beggars,'  of  Holland,  and  how 
they  appropriated  their  name,  is  familiar,  as  I 
doubt  not,  to  many.f 

A  '  Premier'  or  '  Prime  Minister,'  though  un- 
known to  the  law  of  England,  is  at  present  one 
of  the  institutions  of  the  country.  The  acknow- 
ledged leadership  of  one  member  in  the  Govern- 
ment is  a  fact  of  only  gradual  growth  in  our 
constitutional  history,  but  one  in  which  the  nation 
has  entirely  acquiesced, — nor  is  there  anything 
invidious  now  in  the  title.     But  in  what  spirit 

*  Dr.  Eck,  one  of  the  earliest  who  wrote  against  the 
Reformation,  first  called  the  Reformed  '  Lutherani.' 

t  [See  chapter  on  Political  Nicknames  in  D'Israeli's 
Cut  iosi lies  of  Literature.'] 


IV. 


Orthodox,  Catholic.  155 


the  Parliamentary  Opposition,  having  coined  the 
term,  applied  it  first  to  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  is 
plain  from  some  words  of  his  spoken  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  Feb.  11,  1742:  'Having 
invested  me  with  a  kind  of  mock  dignity,  and 
styled  me  a  Prime  Minister,  they  [the  Opposi- 
tion] impute  to  me  an  unpardonable  abuse  of 
the  chimerical  authority  which  they  only  created 
and  conferred.' 

Now  of  these  titles  some  undoubtedly,  like 
'  Capuchin  '  instanced  just  now,  stand  in  no  very 
intimate  connexion  with  those  who  bear  them  ; 
and  such  names,  though  seldom  without  their 
instruction,  yet  plainly  are  not  so  instructive  as 
others,  in  which  the  innermost  heart  of  the  thing 
named  so  utters  itself,  that,  having  mastered  the 
name,  we  have  placed  ourselves  at  the  central 
point,  from  whence  best  to  master   everything 
besides.     It  is  thus  with  '  Gnostic '  and  '  Gnosti- 
cism ' ;  in  the  prominence   given  to  gnosis   or 
knowledge,  as  opposed  to  faith,  lies  the  key  to 
the  whole  system.    The  Greek  Church  has  loved 
ever  to  style  itself  the  Holy '  Orthodox  '  Church, 
the  Latin,  the  Holy  '  Catholic  '  Church.     Follow 
up   the   thoughts   which   these   words  suggest. 
What  a  world  of  teaching  they  contain  ;  above 
all   when  brought  into  direct  comparison   and 
opposition  one  with  the  other.     How  does  all 
which  is   innermost  in  the  Greek  and  Roman 
mind  unconsciously  reveal  itself  here  ;  the  Greek 


156         On  the  History  in  Words.         lect. 

Church  regarding  as  its  chief  blazon  that  its 
speculation  is  right,  the  Latin  that  its  empire  is 
universal.     Nor  indeed  is  it  merely  the  Greek 
and    Latin    Churches   which   utter    themselves 
here,  but   Greece   and  Rome   in   their   deepest 
distinctions,  as  these  existed  from  their  earliest 
times.     The  key  to  the  whole  history,  Pagan  as 
well  as  Christian,  of  each  is  in  these  words.    We 
can  understand  how  the  one  established  a  do- 
minion in  the  region  of  the  mind  which   shall 
never   be  overthrown,   the    other    founded   an 
empire  in  the  world  whose  visible  effects  shall 
never   be   done  away.     This   is   an   illustrious 
example  ;  but  I  am  bold  to  affirm  that,  in  their 
degree,  all   parties,  religious   and  political,  are 
known  by   names  that  will   repay   study  ;    by 
names,  to  understand  which  will  bring  us  far 
to  an  understanding  of  their  strength  and  their 
weakness,  their  truth  and  their  error,  the  idea 
and  intention  according  to  which  they  wrought 
Thus  run  over  in  thought  a  few  of  those  which 
have  risen  up  in  England.     '  Puritans,'  '  Fifth- 
Monarchy  men,'  'Seekers/  'Levellers,'  'Inde- 
pendents,'  '  Friends,'    '  Rationalists,'   '  Latitudi- 
narians,'  '  Freethinkers,'  these  titles,  with  many 
more,  have  each   its   significance ;    and  would 
you  get  to  the  heart  of  things,  and  thoroughly 
understand   what    any    of   these   schools   and 
parties    intended,   you    must    first   understand 
what   they  were  called.     From  this  as  from  a 


tv.      History  of  Commerce  in  Words.     1 5  7 

central  point  you  must  start ;  even  as  you 
must  bring  back  to  this  whatever  further  know- 
ledge you  may  acquire  ;  putting  your  later 
gains,  if  possible,  in  subordination  to  the  name  ; 
at  all  events  in  connexion  and  relation  with  it 

You  will  often  be  able  to  glean  information 
from  names,  such  as,  if  not  always  important, 
will  yet  rarely  fail  to  be  interesting  and  in- 
structive in  its  way.  Thus  what  a  record  oi 
inventions,  how  much  of  the  past  history  of 
commerce  do  they  embody  and  preserve.  The 
'  magnet' has  its  name  from  Magnesia,  a  district 
of  Thessaly  ;  this  same  Magnesia,  or  else  another 
like-named  district  in  Asia  Minor,  yielding  the 
medicinal  earth  so  called.  '  Artesian '  wells  are 
from  the  province  of  Artois  in  France,  where 
they  were  long  in  use  before  introduced  else- 
where. The  '  baldachin  '  or  '  baudekin  '  is  from 
Baldacco,  the  Italian  form  of  the  name  of  the 
city  of  Bagdad,  from  whence  the  costly  silk  of 
this  canopy  originally  came.*  The '  bayonet '  sug- 
gests concerning  itself,  though  perhaps  wrongly, 
that  it  was  first  made  at  Bayonne — the  '  bilbo,'  a 
finely  tempered  Spanish  blade,  at  Bilbao — the 
1  carronade '  at  the  Carron  Ironworks  in  Scot- 
land— '  worsted  '  that  it  was  spun  at  a  village 

*  [See  Devic's  Supplement  to  Littre* ;  the  Italian  /is  an 
attempt  to  pronounce  the  Arabic  guttural  Ghain.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  Baldacco  was  often  supposed  to  be  the  same 
as  '  Babylon  ' ;  see  Florio's  Ital,  Diet.  (s.  v.  baldacco).'] 


158         On  the  History  in  Words.  lect. 

not  far  from  Norwich — '  sarcenet '  that  it  is  a 
Saracen  manufacture — '  cambric  '  that  it  reached 
us  from  Cambray — '  copper '  that  it  drew  its 
name  from  Cyprus,  so  richly  furnished  with 
mines  of  this  metal — '  fustian  '  from  Fostat, 
a  suburb  of  Cairo — '  frieze '  from  Friesland 
— '  silk '  or  '  sericum  '  from  the  land  of  the 
Seres  or  Chinese — '  damask  '  from  Damascus — ■ 
e  cassimere  '  or  '  kersemere  '  from  Cashmere — 
'  arras  '  from  a  town  like-named — '  duffel,'  too, 
from  a  town  near  Antwerp  so  called,  which 
Wordsworth  has  immortalized — 'shalloon  '  from 
Chalons — '  jane  '  from  Genoa — '  gauze  '  from 
Gaza.  The  fashion  of  the  'cravat'  was  bor- 
rowed from  the  Croats,  or  Crabats,  as  this  wild 
irregular  soldiery  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  used 
to  be  called.  The  '  biggen,'  a  plain  cap  often 
mentioned  by  our  early  writers,  was  first  worn 
by  the  Beguines,  communities  of  pietist  women 
in  the  Low  Countries  in  the  twelfth  century. 
The  '  dalmatic  '  was  a  garment  whose  fashion 
was  taken  to  be  borrowed  from  Dalmatia.  {See 
Marriott.)  England  now  sends  her  calicoes  and 
muslins  to  India  and  the  East ;  yet  these  words 
give  standing  witness  that  we  once  imported 
them  from  thence  ;  for  '  calico '  is  from  Calicut,  a 
town  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  and  '  muslin  ' 
from  Mossul,  a  city  in  Asiatic  Turkey.  '  Cord- 
wain  '  or  'cordovan'  is  from  Cordova — 'delf 
from  Delft — '  indigo  '  (indicum)    from   India — 


nr.      History  of  Commerce  in  Words.     159 

'  gamboge '  from  Cambodia — the  '  agate  '  from  a 
Sicilian  river,  Achates— the  'turquoise'  from 
Turkey — the  '  chalcedony '  or  onyx  from  Chal- 
cedon — 'jet'  from  the  river  Gages  in  Lycia, 
where  this  black  stone  is  found.  '  Rhubarb '  is 
a  corruption  of  Rha  barbarum,  the  root  from  the 
savage  banks  of  the  Rha  or  Volga — 'jalap'  is 
from  Jalapa,  a  town  in  Mexico — '  tobacco  '  from 
the  island  Tobago — '  malmsey '  from  Malvasia, 
for  long  a  flourishing  city  in  the  Morea — '  sherry,' 
or  '  sherris '  as  Shakespeare  wrote  it,  is  from 
Xeres — '  macassar'  oil  from  a  small  Malay  king- 
dom so  named  in  the  Eastern  Archipelago — 
'  dittany '  from  the  mountain  Dicte,  in  Crete — 
'  parchment '  from  Pergamum — '  majolica '  from 
Majorca — '  faience  '  from  the  town  named  in 
Italian  Faenza.  A  little  town  in  Essex  gave  its 
name  to  the  '  tilbury ' ;  another,  in  Bavaria,  to 
the  '  landau.'  The  '  bezant '  is  a  coin  of  Byzan- 
tium ;  the  '  guinea '  was  originally  coined  (in 
1663)  of  gold  brought  from  the  African  coast 
so  called  ;  the  pound  '  sterling '  was  a  certain 
weight  of  bullion  according  to  the  standard  of 
the  Easterlings,  or  Eastern  merchants  from  the 
Hanse  Towns  on  the  Baltic*  The  'spaniel'  is 
from  Spain ;  the  '  barb '  is  a  steed  from  Barbary ; 
the  pony  called  a  '  galloway '  from  the  county 
of  Galloway  in  Scotland  ;  the  '  tarantula '  is  a 

*  [This  is  extremely  doubtful,  as  may  be  seen  from 
Mr.  H.  Bradley's  note  in  the  New  English  Dictionary, 
s.  v.  Easterling.] 


160         On  the  History  in  Words.  lect. 

poisonous  spider,  common  in  the  neighbourhood 
ofTarentum.  The  'pheasant'  reached  us  from 
the  banks  of  the  Phasis ;  the  '  bantam  '  from 
a  Dutch  settlement  in  Java  so  called  ;  the 
'  canary,'  bird  and  wine,  both  from  the  island  so 
named  ;  the  '  peach '  (persica)  declares  itself  a 
Persian  fruit  ;  ■  currants '  derived  their  name 
from  Corinth,  whence  they  were  mostly  shipped  ; 
the  '  damson '  is  the  •  damascene,'  or  plum  of 
Damascus  ;  the '  bergamot '  pear  is  named  from 
Bergamo  in  Italy  ;  the  '  quince  '  has  undergone 
so  many  changes  in  its  progress  through  Italian 
and  French  to  us,  that  it  hardly  retains  any 
trace  of  Cydon  (malum  Cydonium),  a  town  of 
Crete,  from  which  it  was  supposed  to  proceed. 
'  Solecisms,'  if  I  may  find  room  for  them  here, 
are  from  Soloe,  an  Athenian  colony  in  Cilicia, 
whose  members  soon  forgot  the  Attic  refine- 
ment of  speech,  and  became  notorious  for  the 
ungrammatical  Greek  which  they  talked. 

And  as  things  thus  keep  record  in  the  names 
which  they  bear  of  the  quarters  from  which  they 
reached  us,  so  also  will  they  often  do  of  the 
persons  who,  as  authors,  inventors,  or  discoverers, 
or  in  some  other  way,  stood  in  near  connexion 
with  them.  A  collection  in  any  language  of  all 
the  names  of  persons  which  have  since  become 
names  of  things — from  nomina  apellativa  have 
become  nomina  realia — would  be  very  curious 
and  interesting.    I  will  enumerate  a  few.   Where 


iv.  Proper  Names  become  Words.     1 6 1 

the  matter  is  not  familiar  to  you,  it  will  not  be 
unprofitable  to  work  back  from  the  word  or 
thing  to  the  person,  and  to  learn  more  accu- 
rately the  connexion  between  them. 

To  begin  with  mythical  antiquity — the 
Chimsera  has  given  us  '  chimerical,'  Hermes 
'  hermetic,'  Pan  '  panic,'  Paean,  being  a  name  of 
Apollo,  the  '  peony,'  Tantalus  '  to  tantalize,' 
Hercules  '  herculean,'  Proteus  '  protean,'  Vulcan 
'  volcano '  and  '  volcanic,'  and  Daedalus  '  dedal,' 
if  this  word,  for  which  Spenser,  Wordsworth, 
and  Shelley  have  all  stood  godfathers,  may  find 
allowance  with  us.  The  demi-god  Atlas  figures 
with  a  world  upon  his  shoulders  in  the  title-page 
of  some  early  works  on  geography ;  and  has 
probably  in  this  way  lent  to  our  map-books 
their  name.  Gordius,  the  Phrygian  king  who 
tied  the  famous  '  gordian  '  knot  which  Alexander 
cut,  will  supply  a  natural  transition  from  mythi- 
cal to  historical.  The  'daric,'  a  Persian  gold 
coin,  very  much  of  the  same  value  as  our  own 
rose  noble,  had  its  name  from  Darius.  Mausolus, 
a  king  of  Caria,  has  left  us  '  mausoleum,'  Aca- 
demus  '  academy,'  Epicurus  '  epicure,'  Philip  of 
Macedon  a  '  philippic,'  being  such  a  discourse  as 
Demosthenes  once  launched  against  the  enemy 
of  Greece,  and  Cicero  'cicerone.'  Mithridates, 
who  had  made  himself  poison-proof,  gave  us 
the  now  forgotten  '  mithridate '  (Dryden)  for 
antidote ;   as    from    Hippocrates    we    derived 

M 


1 62  On  the  History  in  Words.         ujct. 

'  hipocras,'  or  *  ypocras,'  often  occurring  in  our 
early  poets,  being  a  wine  supposed  to  be 
mingled  after  the  great  physician's  receipt. 
Gentius,  a  king  of  Illyria,  gave  his  name  to 
the  plant  '  gentian,'  having  been,  it  is  said,  the 
first  to  discover  its  virtues.*  Glaubers,  who  has 
bequeathed  his  salts  to  us,  was  a  Dutch  chemist 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  A  grammar  used 
to  be  called  a  '  donat '  or  '  donet '  (Chaucer), 
from  Donatus,  a  Roman  grammarian  of  the 
fourth  century,  whose  Latin  grammar  held  its 
place  as  a  school-book  during  a  large  part  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Othman,  more  than  any  other 
the  grounder  of  the  Turkish  dominion  in  Europe, 
reappears  in  our  '  Ottoman ' ;  and  Tertullian, 
strangely  enough,  in  the  Spanish  '  tertulia.' 
The  beggar  Lazarus  has  given  us  '  lazar '  and 
1  lazaretto  '  ;  Veronica  and  the  legend  connected 
with  her  name,  a  '  vernicle,'  being  a  napkin  with 
the  Saviour's  face  impressed  upon  it.  Simon 
Magus  gave  us  '  simony  '  ;  this,  however,  as  we 
understand  it  now,  is  not  a  precise  reproduction 
of  his  sin  as  recorded  in  Scripture.  A  common 
fossil  shell  is  called  an  '  ammonite '  from  the 
fanciful  resemblance  to  the  twisted  horns  of 
Jupiter  Ammon  which  was  traced  in  it ;  Ammon 
again  appearing  in  '  ammonia.'  Our  '  panta- 
loons '  are  from  St.  Pantaleone  ;  he  was  the 
patron  saint  of  the  Venetian  3,  who  therefore  very 

*  Pliny,  H.  N.  xxv.  34. 


iv.        Proper  Names  become  Words.       163 

commonly  received  Pantaleon  as  their  Christian 
name  ;  it  was  from  them  transferred  to  a  garment 
which  they  much  affected.  •  Dunce,'  as  we  have 
seen,  is  derived  from  Duns  Scotus.  To  come  to 
more  modern  times,  and  not  pausing  at  Ben 
Jonson's  '  chaucerisms,'  Bishop  Hall's  '  scogan- 
isms,'  from  Scogan,  Edward  the  Fourth's  jester, 
or  his  '  aretinisms,'  from  Aretin  ;  these  being 
probably  not  intended  even  by  their  authors  to 
endure  ;  a  Roman  cobbler  named  Pasquin  has 
given  us  the '  pasquil '  or '  pasquinade.'  Derrick 
was  the  common  hangman  in  the  time  of 
Charles  II. ;  he  bequeathed  his  name  to  the 
crane  used  for  the  lifting  and  moving  of  heavy 
weights.*  •  Patch,'  a  name  of  contempt  not 
unfrequent  in  Shakespeare,  was,  it  is  said,  the 
proper  name  of  a  favourite  fool  of  Cardinal 
Wolsey's.t  Colonel  Negus  in  Queen  Anne's 
time  is  reported  to  have  first  mixed  the  beve- 
rage which  goes  by  his  name.  Lord  Orrery  was 
the  first  for  whom  an  '  orrery  '  was  constructed  ; 
Lord  Spencer  first  wore,  or  first  brought  into 
fashion,  a  '  spencer ' ;  and  the  Duke  of  Roque- 
laure  the  cloak  which  still  bears  his  name.   Dahl, 


*  [But  derick  in  the  sense  of '  gallows '  occurs  as  early 
as  1606  in  Dekker's  Seven  Deadly  Sins  of  London,  ed. 
Arber,  p.  17  ;  see  Skeat's  Etym.  Diet.,  ed.  2,  p.  799.] 

t  [The  Cardinal's  two  fools  were  occasionally  called 
patch,  a  term  for  a  '  domestic  fool,'  from  the  patchy, 
parti-coloured  dress  j  see  Skeat  (s.  v.).] 

M  2 


1 64  On  the  History  in  Words. 


a  Swede,  introduced  from  Mexico  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  «  dahlia '  ;  the  '  fuchsia  '  is  named 
after  Fuchs,  a  German  botanist  of  the  sixteenth 
century;  the  '  magnolia '  after  Magnol,  a  dis- 
tinguished French  botanist  of  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  ;  while  the  '  camelia '  was  intro- 
duced into  Europe  from  Japan  in  1731  by 
Camel,  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Jesus ;  the 
'  shaddock '  by  Captain  Shaddock,  who  first 
transplanted  this  fruit  from  the  West  Indies.  In 
1  quassia '  we  have  the  name  of  a  negro  sorcerer 
of  Surinam,  who  in  1730  discovered  its  pro- 
perties, and  after  whom  it  was  called.  An 
unsavoury  jest  of  Vespasian  has  attached  his 
name  in  French  to  an  unsavoury  spot.  'Nico- 
tine,' the  poison  recently  drawn  from  tobacco, 
goes  back  for  its  designation  to  Nicot,  a  physi- 
cian, who  first  introduced  the  tobacco-plant  to 
the  general  notice  of  Europe.  The  Gobelins 
were  a  family  so  highly  esteemed  in  France 
that  the  manufactory  of  tapestry  which  they 
had  established  in  Paris  did  not  drop  their 
name,  even  after  it  had  been  purchased  and 
was  conducted  by  the  State.  A  French  Pro- 
testant refugee,  Tabinet,  first  made  '  tabinet '  in 
Dublin  ;  another  Frenchman,  Goulard,  a  phy- 
sician of  Montpellier,  gave  his  to  the  soothing 
lotion,  not  unknown  in  our  nurseries.  The 
1  tontine '  was  conceived  by  Tonti,  an  Italian  ; 
another  Italian,  Galvani,  first   noted  the  phe- 


vr.         Proper  Names  become  Words.      165 

nomena  of  animal  electricity  or  '  galvanism ' ; 
while  a  third,  Volta,  lent  a  title  to  the  '  voltaic  ' 
battery.  Dolomieu,  a  French  geologist,  first 
called  attention  to  a  peculiar  formation  of  rocks 
in  Eastern  Tyrol,  called  '  dolomites  '  after  him. 
Colonel  Martinet  was  a  French  officer  appointed 
by  Louvois  as  an  army  inspector  ;  one  who  did 
his  work  excellently  well,  but  has  left  a  name 
bestowed  often  since  on  mere  military  pedants. 
'  Macintosh,'  '  doyly,'  'brougham,'  'hansom,'  'to 
mesmerize,' '  to  macadamize,' '  to  burke,' '  to  boy- 
cott,' are  all  names  of  persons  or  words  formed 
from  their  names,  and  then  transferred  to  things 
or  actions,  on  the  ground  of  some  sort  of  con- 
nexion between  the  one  and  the   other.*     To 


*  Several  other  such  words  we  have  in  common  with 
the  French.  Of  their  own  they  have  '  sardanapalisme,' 
any  piece  of  profuse  luxury,  from  Sardanapalus.  For 
<  lambiner,'  to  dally  or  loiter  over  a  task,  they  are  indebted 
to  Denis  Lambin,  a  worthy  Greek  scholar  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  but  accused  of  sluggish  movement  and  weari- 
some diffuseness  in  style.  Every  reader  of  Pascal's  Pro- 
vincial Letters  will  remember  Escobar,  the  famous  casuist 
of  the  Jesuits,  whose  convenient  devices  for  the  relaxation 
of  the  moral  law  have  there  been  made  famous.  To  the 
notoriety  which  he  thus  acquired,  he  owes  his  introduc- 
tion into  the  French  language;  where  'escobarder'  is 
used  in  the  sense  of  to  equivocate,  and  '  escobarderie ' 
of  subterfuge  or  equivocation.  A  pale  green  colour  is  in 
French  called  'celadon'  from  a  personage  of  this  name, 
of  a  feeble  and  fade  tenderness,  who  figures  in  Astrt'e, 
a  popular  romance  of  the  seventeenth  century.     An  un- 


1 66  On  the  History  in  Words.  lect. 

these  I  may  add  'guillotine,'  though  Dr.  Guil- 
lotin  did  not  invent  this  instrument  of  death, 
even  as  it  is  a  baseless  legend  that  he  died  by 
it.  Some  improvements  in  it  he  made,  and  it 
thus  happened  that  it  was  called  after  him. 

Nor  less  shall  we  find  history,  at  all  events 
literary  history,  in  the  noting  of  the  popular 
characters  in  books,  who  have  supplied  words 
that  have  passed  into  common  speech.  Thus 
from  Homer  we  have  '  mentor  '  for  a  monitor  ; 
'  stentorian  '  for  loud-voiced  ;  and  inasmuch  as, 
with  all  of  Hector's  nobleness,  there  is  a  certain 
amount  of  big  talk  about  him,  he  has  given  us 
'  to  hector ' ;  *  while  the  medieval  romances 
about  the  siege  of  Troy  ascribe  to  Pandarus 
that  shameful  traffic   out   of  which   his   name 


popular  minister  of  finance,  M.  de  Silhouette,  unpopular 
because  he  sought  to  cut  down  unnecessary  expenses  in 
the  State,  saw  his  name  transferred  to  the  slight  and  thus 
cheap  black  outline  portrait  called  a  'silhouette'  (Sis- 
mondi,  Hist,  des  Francais,  vol.  xix.  pp.  94,  95).  In  the 
'mansarde'  roof  we  are  reminded  of  Mansart,  the  archi- 
tect who  introduced  it.  In  '  marivaudage '  the  name  of 
Marivaux  is  bound  up,  who  was  noted  for  the  affected 
euphuism  which  goes  by  this  name ;  very  much  as  the 
sophist  Gorgias  gave  yopyid&iv  to  the  Greek.  The  point 
of  contact  between  the  'fiacre'  and  St.  Fiacre  is  well 
known :  hackney  carriages,  when  first  established  in 
Paris,  waited  for  their  hiring  in  the  court  of  an  hotel 
which  was  adorned  with  an  image  of  the  Scottish  saint. 

*  See  Col.  Mure,  Language  and Literature  of  Ancient 
Greece^  vol  i.  p.  35a 


iv.  Mistakes  in  Words.  167 

has  passed  into  the  words  'to  pander'  and 
'pandarism.'  'Rodomontade'  is  from  Rodo- 
monte,  a  hero  of  Boiardo  ;  who  yet,  it  must  be 
owned,  does  not  bluster  and  boast,  as  the  word 
founded  on  his  name  seems  to  imply  ;  adopted 
by  Ariosto,  it  was  by  him  changed  into  Roda- 
monte.  '  Thrasonical '  is  from  Thraso,  the 
braggart  of  Roman  comedy.  Cervantes  has 
given  us  'quixotic';  Swift  'lilliputian '  ;  to 
Moliere  the  French  language  owes  '  tartuffe ' 
and  '  tartufferie.'  '  Reynard  '  with  us  is  a  sort 
of  duplicate  for  fox;  while  in  French  '  renard ' 
has  quite  supplanted  the  old  '  goupil,'  being 
originally  no  more  than  the  proper  name  of  the 
fox-hero,  the  vulpine  Ulysses,  in  that  famous 
beast-epic  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Reineke  Fuchs. 
The  immense  popularity  of  this  poem  we  gather 
from  many  evidences — from  none  more  clearly 
than  from  this.  '  Chanticleer '  is  the  name  of 
the  cock,  and  '  Bruin '  of  the  bear  in  the  same 
poem.*  These  have  not  made  fortune  to  the 
same  extent  of  actually  putting  out  of  use 
names  which  before  existed,  but  contest  the  right 
of  existence  with  them. 

Occasionally  a  name  will  embody  and  give 
permanence  to  an  error  ;  as  when  in  '  America ' 
the  discovery  of  the  New  World,  which  belonged 
to   Columbus,  is   ascribed  to  another  eminent 

*  See  Genin,  Des  Variations  du  Langage  Francois^ 

p.  12. 


1 68         On  the  History  in  Words.         utc-r. 

discoverer,  but  one  who  had  no  title  to  this 
honour,  even  as  he  was  entirely  guiltless  of  any 
attempt  to  usurp  it  for  himself.*  Our  '  turkeys  ' 
are  not  from  Turkey,  as  was  assumed  by  those 
who  so  called  them,  but  from  that  New  World 
where  alone  they  are  native.  This  error  the 
French  in  another  shape  repeat  with  their 
1  dinde,'  originally  '  poulet  d'Inde,'  or  Indian  fowl. 
There  lies  in  'gipsy,'  or  Egyptian,  the  assumption 
that  Egypt  was  the  original  home  of  this  strange 
people  ;  as  was  widely  believed  when  they  made 
their  first  appearance  in  Europe  early  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  That  this,  however,  was  a 
mistake,  their  language  leaves  no  doubt ;  pro- 
claiming as  it  does  that  they  are  wanderers 
from  a  more  distant  East,  an  outcast  tribe  from 
Hindostan.  '  Bohemians,'  as  they  are  called  by 
the  French,  testifies  to  a  similar  error,  to  the 
fact  that  at  their  first  apparition  in  Western 
Europe  they  were  supposed  by  the  common 
people  in  France  to  be  the  expelled  Hussites  of 
Bohemia. 

Where  words  have  not  embodied  an  error,  it 
will  yet  sometimes  happen  that  the  sound  or 


*  Humboldt  has  abundantly  shown  this  (Kosmos,\o\. 
ii.  note  457).  He  ascribes  its  general  reception  to  its  in- 
troduction into  a  popular  work  on  geography,  published 
in  1507.  The  subject  has  also  been  very  carefully  treatea 
by  Major,  Life  of  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator^  1868,  pp. 
382-388. 


iv.  Mistaken  Etymologies.  169 

spelling  will  to  us  suggest  one.     Against  such 
in   these   studies  it  will  be  well  to  be  on  our 
guard.     Thus  many  of  us  have  been  tempted  to 
put  '  domus  '  and  'dominus'  into  a  connexion 
which  really  does  not  exist.     There  has  been  a 
stage   in    most   boys'  geographical  knowledge, 
when  they  have  taken  for  granted  that '  Jutland ' 
was  so  called,  not  because  it  was  the  land  of  the 
Jutes,  but  on  account  of  its  jutting  out  into  the  sea 
in  so  remarkable  a  manner.     At  a  much  later 
period  of  their  education, '  Aborigines,'  being  the 
proper  name  of  an    Italian    tribe,  might  very 
easily  lead  astray.*     Who  is  there  that  has  not 
mentally  put  the  Gulf  of  Lyons  in  some  con- 
nexion with  the  city  of  the  same  name  ?     We 
may  be  surprised  that   the  Gulf  should   have 
drawn  its  title  from  a  city  so  remote  and  so  far 
inland,  but  we  accept  the  fact  notwithstanding : 
the  river   Rhone,  flowing  by  the  one,  and  dis- 
emboguing in  the  other,  seems  to  offer  to  us  a 
certain    link   of  connexion.      There   is   indeed 
no  true  connexion  at  all  between  the  two.     In 
old   texts   this   Gulf  is  generally  called  Sinus 
Gallicus  ;  in  the  fourteenth  century  a  few  writers 
began  to  call  it  Sinus  Leonis,  the  Gulf  of  the 
Lion,  possibly  from  the  fierceness  of  its  winds 
and  waves,  but  at  any  rate  by  a  name  having 
nothing  to  do  with  Lyons  on  the  Rhone.     The 
oak,  in  Greek  hpvs,  plays  no  inconsiderable  part 
•  See  Pauly,  Encyclop.  s.  v.  Latium. 


170         On  the  History  in  Words.         wcr. 

in  the  Ritual  of  the  Druids  ;  it  is  not  therefore 
wonderful  if  most  students  at  one  time  of  their 
lives  have  put  the  two  in  etymological  relation. 
The  Greeks,  who  with  so  characteristic  a  vanity 
assumed  that  the  key  to  the  meaning  of  words 
in  all  languages  was  to  be  found  in  their  own, 
did  this  of  course.  So,  too,  there  have  not 
been  wanting  those  who  have  traced  in  the 
name 'Jove'  a  heathen  reminiscence  of  the  great 
name  now  miswritten  '  Jehovah ' ;  while  yet, 
however  specious  this  may  seem,  on  closer  scru- 
tiny the  words  declare  that  they  have  no  con- 
nexion with  one  another,  any  more  than  '  Iapetus ' 
and  •  Japheth,'  or,  I  may  add,  than  '  God '  and 
'good,' which  yet  by  an  honourable  moral  instinct 
men  can  hardly  refrain  from  putting  into  an 
etymological  relation  with  each  other. 

Sometimes  a  falsely-assumed  derivation  of  a 
word  has  reacted  upon  and  modified  its  spelling. 
Thus  it  may  have  been  with  'hurricane.'  In 
the  tearing  up  and  hurrying  away  of  the  canes 
in  the  sugar  plantations  by  this  West-Indian 
tornado,  many  have  seen  an  explanation  of  the 
name ;  just  in  the  same  way  as  the  Latin  'ca- 
lamitas '  has  been  derived  from  '  calamus,'  the 
stalk  of  the  corn.  In  both  cases  the  etymology 
is  faulty  ;  '  hurricane,'  originally  a  Carib  word, 
is  only  a  transplanting  into  our  tongue  of  the 
Spanish  '  huracan.' 

It  is  a  signal  evidence  of  the  conservative 


iv.  Words  embody  Past  Customs.       171 

powers  of  language,  that  we  may  continually 
trace  in  speech  the  record  of  customs  and  states 
of  society  which  have  now  passed  so  entirely 
away  as  to  survive  in  these  words  alone.  For  ex- 
ample, a  '  stipulation  '  or  agreement  is  so  called, 
as  many  affirm,  from  '  stipula,'  a  straw  ;  and  tells 
of  a  Roman  custom,  that  when  two  persons  would 
make  a  mutual  engagement  with  one  another,* 
they  would  break  a  straw  between  them.  We  all 
know  what  fact  of  English  history  is  laid  up  in 
'  curfew,'  or  '  couvre-feu.'  The '  limner,'  or  '  illu- 
miner,'  for  so  we  find  the  word  in  Fuller,  throws 
us  back  on  a  time  when  the  illumination  of  manu- 
scripts was  a  leading  occupation  of  the  painter. 
By  '  lumber,'  we  are  reminded  that  Lombards 
were  the  first  pawnbrokers,  even  as  they  were 
the  first  bankers,  in  England  :  a  •  lumber  '-room 
being  a  '  lombard  '-room,  or  a  room  where  the 
pawnbroker  stored  his  pledges.f  Nor  need  I 
do  more  than  remind  you  that  in  our  common 
phrase  of  '  signing  our  name,'  we  preserve  a 
record  of  a  time  when  such  first  rudiments  of 
education  as  the  power  of  writing,  were  the  por- 


*  See  on  this  disputed  point,  and  on  the  relation  be- 
tween the  Latin  'stipulatio'  and  the  old  German  custom 
not  altogether  dissimilar,  J.  Grimm,  Deutsche  Rechtsalter- 
ihiimer,  pp.  121,  sqq.  [This  account  of  the  derivation  of 
'  stipulatio '  is  generally  given  up  now  ;  for  Greek  cognates 
of  the  word  see  Curtius,  Creek  Etymology,  No.  224.] 

t  See  my  Select  Glossary,  s.  v.  Lumber. 


172  On  the  History  in  Words.         «-*ct 

tion  of  so  few,  that  it  was  not  as  now  an  excep- 
tion, but  the  custom,  of  most  persons  to  make 
their  mark  or  '  sign  '  ;  great  barons  and  kings 
themselves  not  being  ashamed  to  set  this  sign 
or  cross  to  the  weightiest  documents.  To  '  sub- 
scribe '  the  name  would  more  accurately  express 
what  now  we  do.  As  often  as  we  term  arith- 
metic the  science  of  calculation,  we  implicitly 
allude  to  that  rudimental  stage  in  this  science, 
when  pebbles  (calculi)  were  used,  as  now  among 
savage  tribes  they  often  are,  to  help  the  practice 
of  counting  ;  the  Greeks  made  the  same  use  of 
one  word  of  theirs  (yjrTj^i^eiv) ;  while  in  another 
{Trefinrd^eiv)  they  kept  record  of  a  period  when 
the  five  fingers  were  so  employed.  '  Expend,' 
'expense,'  tell  us  that  money  was  once  weighed 
out  (Gen.  xxiii.  16),  not  counted  out  as  now  ; 
'  pecunia,'  '  peculatus,'  '  fee '  (cp.  German  vieh) 
keep  record  all  of  a  time  when  cattle  were  the 
main  circulating  medium.  In  '  library  '  we  pre- 
serve the  fact  that  books  were  once  written  on 
the  bark  (liber)  of  trees  ;  in  '  volume '  that  they 
were  mostly  rolls  ;  in  '  paper,'  that  the  Egyptian 
papyrus,  '  the  paper-reeds  by  the  brooks,'  fur- 
nished at  one  time  the  ordinary  material  on 
which  they  were  written. 

Names  thus  so  often  surviving  things,  we  have 
no  right  to  turn  an  etymology  into  an  argument. 
There  was  a  notable  attempt  to  do  this  in  the 
controversy  so  earnestly  carried  on  between  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Churches,  concerning  the  bread, 


▼•  Errors  bound  up  in  Words. 


i  o 


whether  it  should  be  leavened  or  unleavened, 
that  was  used  at  the  Table  of  the  Lord.  Those 
of  the  Eastern  Church  constantly  urged  that  the 
Greek  word  for  bread  (and  in  Greek  was  the 
authoritative  record  of  the  first  institution  of 
this  sacrament),  implied,  according  to  its  root, 
that  which  was  raised  or  lifted  up ;  not,  there- 
fore, unleavened  bread ;  such  rather  as  had 
undergone  the  process  of  fermentation.  But 
even  if  the  etymology  on  which  they  relied 
(cipros  from  a"pco,  to  raise)  had  been  as  certain 
as  it  is  questionable,  they  could  draw  no  argu- 
ment of  the  slightest  worth  from  so  remote  an 
etymology,  and  one  which  had  so  long  fallen 
out  of  the  consciousness  of  those  who  employed 
the  word. 

Theories  too,  which  long  since  were  utterly 
renounced,  have  yet  left  their  traces  behind  them. 
Thus  '  good  humour,'  '  bad  humour,'  '  humours,' 
and,  strangest  contradiction  of  all, 'dry  humour,' 
rest  altogether  on  a  now  exploded,  but  a  very 
old  and  widely  accepted,  theory  of  medicine  ; 
according  to  which  there  were  four  principal 
moistures  or  '  humours '  in  the  natural  body,  on 
the  due  proportion  and  combination  of  which  the 
disposition  alike  of  body  and  mind  depended.* 
Our  present  use  of '  temper  '  has  its  origin  in  the 
same  theory;  the  due  admixture,  or  right  tem- 


•  See  the  Prologue  to  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  out 
of  His  Humour,  and  Select  Glossary,  s.  v. 


174         On  the  History  in  Words.  utcr. 

pering,  of  these  humours  gave  what  was  called 
the  happy  temper,  or  mixture,  which,  thus  ex- 
isting inwardly,  manifested  itself  also  outwardly  ; 
while  '  distemper,'  which  we  still  employ  in  the 
sense  of  sickness,  was  that  evil  frame  either  of  a 
man's  body  or  his  mind  (for  it  was  used  of  both), 
which  had  its  rise  in  an  unsuitable  mingling  of 
these  humours.  In  these  instances,  as  in  many 
more,  the  great  streams  of  thought  and  feeling 
have  changed  their  course,  flowing  now  in  quite 
other  channels  from  those  which  once  they  filled, 
but  have  left  these  words  as  abiding  memorials 
of  the  channels  wherein  once  they  ran.  Thus 
'  extremes,'  '  golden  mean,'  '  category,'  '  predica- 
ment,' 'axiom,'  'habit,' — what  are  these  but  a 
deposit  in  our  ethical  terminology  which  Ari- 
stotle has  left  behind  him  ? 

But  we  have  not  exhausted  our  examples  of 
the  way  in  which  the  record  of  old  errors,  them- 
selves dismissed  long  ago,  will  yet  survive  in 
language — being  bound  up  in  words  that  grew 
into  use  when  those  errors  found  credit,  and  that 
maintain  their  currency  still.  The  mythology 
which  Saxon  or  Dane  brought  with  them  from 
their  German  or  Scandinavian  homes  is  as  much 
extinct  for  us  as  are  the  Lares,  Larvae,  and 
Lemures  of  heathen  Rome ;  yet  the  deposit  it 
has  permanently  left  behind  it  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  is  not  inconsiderable.  '  Lubber,' 
•dwarf,'  'oaf,'  'droll,'  'wight,'  'puck,'  'urchin,' 
1  hag,'    '  night-mare,'    '  gramary,'     '  Old     Nick,' 


it.  Legends  in  Words.  175 

•  changeling '  (wechselkind),  suggest  themselves, 
as  all  bequeathed  to  us  by  that  old  Teutonic 
demonology.*    Few  now  have  any  faith  in  astro- 
logy, or  count  that  the  planet  under  which  a 
man  is  born  will  affect  his  temperament,  make 
him  for  life  of  a  disposition  grave  or  gay,  lively 
or  severe.     Yet  our  language  affirms  as  much  ; 
for  we  speak  of  men  as  'jovial '  or  '  saturnine,' 
or '  mercurial ' — 'jovial,'  as  being  born  under  the 
planet  Jupiter  or  Jove,  which  was  the  joyfullest 
star,  and  of  happiest  augury  of  all  :|  a  gloomy 
severe  person  is  said  to  be '  saturnine,'  born,  that 
is,  under  the  planet  Saturn,  who  makes  those 
that  own  his  influence,  having  been  born  when 
he  was  in  the  ascendant,  grave  and  stern  as  him- 
self :  another  we  call '  mercurial,'  or  light-hearted, 
as  those  born  under  the  planet  Mercury  were 
accounted  to  be.    The  same  faith  in  the  influence 
of  the  stars  survives  in  '  disastrous,'  '  ill-starred,' 
'  ascendancy,'  '  lord  of  the  ascendant,'  and,  in- 
deed, in  '  influence  '  itself.     What  a  record  of  old 
speculations,  old  certainly  as  Aristotle,  and  not 

*  [But  the  words  puck,  urchin,  gramary,  are  not  of 
Teutonic  origin.  The  etymology  of  puck  is  unknown  ; 
urchin  means  properly  'a  hedgehog,'  being  the  old 
French  ericon  (in  modern  French  hirissori),  a  derivative 
from  the  Latin  ericius,  '  a  hedgehog'  \gramary  is  simply 
Old  French  gramaire,  'grammar'  =  Lat.  grammatica 
(ars),  just  as  Old  French  mire,  'a  medical  man' =  Lat. 
medicum.] 

t  'Jovial'  in  Shakespeare's  time  (see  Cymbeiine^ 
act  5,  sc  4)  had  not  forgotten  its  connexion  with  Jove. 


I  76  On  the  History  in  Words. 


I  Et  T. 


yet  exploded  in  the  time  of  Milton,*  does  the 
word  '  quintessence '  contain  ;  and  '  arsenic '  the 
same  ;  no  other  namely  than  this  that  metals  are 
of  different  sexes,  some  male  (apaevi/cd),  and 
some  female.  Again,  what  curious  legends  be- 
long to  the  '  sardonic,' f  or  Sardinian,  laugh  ;  a 
laugh  caused,  as  was  supposed,  by  a  plant  grow- 
ing in  Sardinia,  of  which  they  who  ate,  died 
laughing ;  to  the  '  barnacle '  goose,!  to  the 
'  amethyst,'  esteemed,  as  the  word  implies,  a 
preventive  or  antidote  of  drunkenness  ;  and  to 
other  words  not  a  few,  which  are  employed  by 
us  still. 

A  question  presents  itself  here,  and  one  not 
merely  speculative ;  for  it  has  before  now  be- 
come a  veritable  case  of  conscience  with  some 
whether  they  ought  to  use  words  which  originally 
rested  on,  and  so  seem  still  to  affirm,  some  super- 
stition or  untruth.  This  question  has  practically 
settled  itself ;  the  words  will  keep  their  ground : 
but  further,  they  have  a  right  to  do  this  ;  for  no 
word  need  be  considered  so  to  root  itself  in  its 
etymology,  and  to  draw  its  sap  and  strength 
from  thence,  that  it  cannot  detach  itself  from 
this,  and  acquire  the  rights  of  an  independent 

*  See  Paradise  Lost,  iii.  714-719. 

t  See  an  excellent  history  of  this  word,  in  Rost  and 
Palm's  Greek  Lexicon,  s.  v.  a-apBoutos. 

X  For  a  full  and  most  interesting  study  on  this  very 
curious  legend,  see  Max  M tiller's  Lectures  on  Language, 
voL  ii.  pp.  533-55 1 ;  [for  the  etymology  of  the  word  barnacle 
in  this  connexion  see  the  New  English  Dictionary  (s.  v.).] 


Needless  Scruples  about  Words.      177 


existence.  And  thus  our  weekly,  newspapers 
commit  no  absurdity  in  calling  themselves  ljour- 
nals,'  or  '  diurnals  '  ;  and  we  as  little  when  we 
name  that  a  'journey'  which  occupies  not  one, 
but  several  days.  We  involve  ourselves  in  no 
real  contradiction,  speaking  of  a  '  quarantine  ' 
of  five,  ten,  or  any  number  of  days  more  or  fewer 
than  forty  ;  or  of  a  population  '  decimated  '  by 
a  plague,  though  exactly  a  tenth  of  it  has  not 
perished.  A  stone  coffin  may  be  still  a  •  sarco- 
phagus,' without  thereby  implying  that  it  has 
any  special  property  of  consuming  the  flesh  of 
bodies  which  are  laid  within  it.*  In  like  man- 
ner the  wax  of  our  '  candles '  ('  candela,'  from 
1  candeo  ')  is  not  necessarily  white  ;  our'  rubrics  ' 
retain  their  name,  though  seldom  printed  in  red 
ink  ;  neither  need  our  '  miniatures '  abandon 
theirs,  though  no  longer  painted  with  minium 
or  carmine  ;  our  'surplice  '  is  not  usually  worn 
over  an  undergarment  of  skins;  our  '  stirrups ' 
are  not  ropes  by  whose  aid  we  climb  upon  our 
horses ;  nor  are  '  haversacks '  sacks  for  the 
carrying  of  oats  ;  it  is  not  barley  or  bere  only 
which  we  store  up  in  our  '  barns,'  nor  hogs'  fat  in 
our  '  larders  ' ;  a  monody  need  not  be  sung  by  a 
single  voice  ;  and  our  lucubrations  are  not  always 
by  candlelight ;  a  '  costermonger  '  or  '  costard- 
monger'  does  not  of  necessity  sell  costards  or 
apples  ;  there  are  '  palaces  '  which  are  not  built 


•  See  Pliny,  H.  N.  ii.  96  ;  xxxvi.  17. 

N 


178  On  the  History  in  Words.         l«ct. 

on  the  Palatine  Hill  ;  and  'nausea'*  which  is 
not  sea-sickness.  I  remember  once  asking  a 
class  of  school-children,  whether  an  announcement 
which  during  one  very  hard  winter  appeared  in 
the  papers,  of  a  '  white  black\}\x&  '  having  been 
shot,  might  be  possibly  correct,  or  was  on  the 
face  of  it  self- contradictory  and  absurd.  The  less 
thoughtful  members  of  the  class  instantly  pro- 
nounced against  it ;  while  after  a  little  considera- 
tion, two  or  three  made  answer  that  it  might  very 
well  be,  that,  while  without  doubt  the  bird  had 
originally  obtained  this  name  from  its  blackness, 
yet  '  blackbird  '  was  now  the  name  of  a  species, 
and  a  name  so  cleaving  to  it,  as  not  to  be  forfeited, 
even  when  the  blackness  had  quite  disappeared. 
We  do  not  question  the  right  of  the  '  New 
Forest '  to  retain  this  title  of  New,  though  it 
has  now  stood  for  eight  hundred  years  ;  nor  of 
•  Naples '  to  be  New  City  (Neapolis)  still,  after 
an  existence  three  or  four  times  as  long. 

It  must,  then,  be  esteemed  a  piece  of  ethical 
prudery,  and  an  ignorance  of  the  laws  which 
languages  obey,  when  the  early  Quakers  refused 
to  employ  the  names  commonly  given  to  the 
days  of  the  week,  and  substituted  for  these, 
1  first  day,'  '  second  day,'  and  so  on.  This  they 
did,  as  is  well  known,  on  the  ground  that  it 
became  not  Christian  men  to  give  that  sanction 
to  idolatry  which  was  involved  in  the  ordinary 

*  [From  nausea  through  the  French  comes  our  English 
noise ;  see  Bartsch  and  Horning,  §  90.J 


iv.        Needless  Scruples  about  Words.     179 

style — as  though  every  time  they  spoke  of 
Wednesday  they  were  rendering  homage  to 
Woden,  of  Thursday  to  Thor,  of  Friday  to 
Friga,  and  thus  with  the  rest  ;  *  or  at  all  events 
recognizing  their  existence.  Now  it  is  quite 
intelligible  that  the  early  Christians,  living  in 
the  midst  of  a  still  rampant  heathenism,  should 
have  objected,  as  we  know  they  did,  to  'dies 
SoliSy  or  Sunday,  to  express  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  their  Lord's-Day.  But  when  the  later 
Friends  raised  Uieir  protest,  the  case  was  alto- 
gether different  The  false  gods  whose  names 
were  bound  up  in  these  words  had  ceased  to  be 
worshipped  in  England  for  about  a  thousand 
years  ;  the  words  had  wholly  disengaged  them- 
selves from  their  etymologies,  of  which  probably 
not  one  in  a  thousand  had  the  slightest  sus- 
picion. Moreover,  had  these  precisians  in  speech 
been  consistent,  they  could  not  have  stopped 
where  they  did.     Every  new  acquaintance  with 


*  It  is  curious  to  find  Fuller  prophesying,  a  very  few 
years  before,  that  at  some  future  day  such  a  protest  as 
theirs  might  actually  be  raised  {Church  History,  b.  ii. 
cent.  6) :  '  Thus  we  see  the  whole  week  bescattered  with 
Saxon  idols,  whose  pagan  gods  were  the  godfathers  of 
the  days,  and  gave  them  their  names.  This  some  zealot 
may  behold  as  the  object  of  a  necessary  reformation, 
desiring  to  have  the  days  of  the  week  new  dipt,  and 
called  after  other  names.  Though,  indeed,  this  sup- 
posed scandal  will  not  offend  the  wise,  as  beneath  their 
notice  ;  and  cannot  offend  the  ignorant,  as  above  their 
knowledge.' 

M  2 


i  So         On  the  History  in  Words.  «-sct. 

the  etymology  or  primary  use  of  words  would 
have  entangled  them  in  some  new  embarrass- 
ment, would  have   required  a  new  purging   of 
their  vocabulary.     '  To  charm/  '  to  bewitch,'  '  to 
fascinate,' '  to  enchant,' would  have  been  no  longer 
lawful  words  for  those  who  had  outlived  the  belief 
in  magic,  and  in  the  power  of  the  evil  eye  ;  nor 
'  lunacy,'  nor  '  lunatic,'  for  such  as  did  not  count 
the  moon  to  have  anything  to  do  with  mental 
unsoundness  ;  nor  '  panic  '  fear,  for    those  who 
believed  that  the  great  god  Pan  was  indeed  dead  ; 
nor  •  auguries,'  nor  '  auspices,'  for  those  to  whom 
divination    was    nothing  ;  while    to    speak    of 
■  initiating  '  a  person  into  the  '  mysteries '  of  an 
art,  would  have  been  utterly  heathenish  language. 
Nay,  they  must  have  found  fault  with  the  lan- 
guage of  Holy  Scripture  itself ;  for  a  word  of 
honourable  use  in  the  New  Testament  expressing 
the  function  of  an  interpreter,  and  reappearing 
in  our  '  hermeneutics,'  is  directly  derived  from 
and  embodies  the  name  of  Hermes,  a  heathen 
deity,  and  one  who  did  not,  like  Woden,  Thor, 
and  Friga,  pertain  to  a  long  extinct  mythology, 
but  to  one  exiting  in  its  strength  at  the  very 
time  when  he  wrote.     And  how  was  it,  as  might 
have  been  fairly  asked,  that  St.  Paul  did    not 
protest  against  a  Christian  woman  retaining  the 
name  of  Phoebe  (Rom.  xvi.  i),  a  goddess  of  the 
same  mythology  ? 

The  rise  and  fall  of  words,  the  honour  which 
in  tract  of  time  they  exchanged  for  dishonour, 


nr.  Rise  and  Fall  of  Words.  1 8 1 

and  the  dishonour  for  honour — all  which  in  my 
last  lecture  I  contemplated  mainly  from  an 
ethical  point  of  view — is  in  a  merely  historic 
aspect  scarcely  less  remarkable.  Very  curious 
is  it  to  watch  the  varying  fortune  of  words — the 
extent  to  which  it  has  fared  with  them,  as  with 
persons  and  families ;  some  having  improved  their 
position  in  the  world,  and  attained  to  far  higher 
dignity  than  seemed  destined  for  them  at  the 
beginning,  while  others  in  a  manner  quite  as 
notable  have  lost  caste,  have  descended  from 
their  high  estate  to  common  and  even  ignoble 
uses.  Titles  of  dignity  and  honour  have  naturally 
a  peculiar  liability  to  be  some  lifted  up,  and 
some  cast  down.  Of  words  which  have  risen  in 
the  world,  the  French  '  marechal '  affords  us  an 
excellent  example.  '  Marechal,'  as  Howell  has 
said,  'at  first  was  the  name  of  a  smith-farrier, 
or  one  that  dressed  horses ' — which  indeed  it  is 
still — '  but  it  climbed  by  degrees  to  that  height 
that  the  chiefest  commanders  of  the  gendarmery 
are  come  to  be  called  marshals.'  But  if  this  has 
risen,  our  '  alderman  '  has  fallen.  Whatever  the 
civic  dignity  of  an  alderman  may  now  be,  still 
it  must  be  owned  that  the  word  has  lost  much 
since  the  time  that  the  '  alderman '  was  only 
second  in  rank  and  position  to  the  king.  Some- 
times a  word  will  keep  or  even  improve  its  place 
in  one  language,  while  at  the  same  time  it  declines 
from  it  in  another.  Thus  'demoiselle  '  (domini- 
cella)   cannot  be  said  to  have   lost  ground  in 


1S2  On  the  History  in  Words.  lect. 

French,  however  '  donzelle  '  may  ;  while  '  dam- 
hele,'  being  the  same  word,  designates  in  Wal- 
loon the  farm-girl  who  minds  the  cows.*  '  Pope ' 
is  the  highest  ecclesiastical  dignitary  in  the  Latin 
Church  ;  every  parish  priest  is  a  '  pope  '  in  the 
Greek.  '  Queen,'  a  cognate  of  yvvi],  has  had  a 
double  fortune.  Spelt  as  above  it  has  more 
than  kept  the  dignity  with  which  it  started, 
being  the  title  given  to  the  lady  of  the  kingdom  ; 
while  spelt  as  '  quean '  it  is  a  designation  not 
untinged  with  contempt.f  '  Squatter'  remains  for 
us  in  England  very  much  where  it  always  was  ; 
in  Australia  it  is  now  the  name  by  which  the 
landed  aristocracy  are  willing  to  be  known.$ 

After  all  which  has  thus  been  adduced,  you 
will  scarcely  deny  that  we  have  a  right  to  speak 
of  a  history  in  words.  Now  suppose  that  the 
pieces  of  money  which  in  the  intercourse  and 
traffic  of  daily  life  are  passing  through  our  hands 
continually,  had  each  one  something  of  its  own 
that  made  it  more  or  less  worthy  of  note  ;  if 
on  one  was  stamped  some  striking  maxim,  on 
another  some  important  fact,  on  the  third  a 
memorable  date  ;  if  others  were  works  of  finest 

•  See  Littre*,  Etudes  et  Glanures,  p.  16  ;  compare  p. 
30.  Elsewhere  he  says  :  Les  mots  ont  leurs  decheances 
comme  les  families. 

t  [Queen  and  quean  are  not  merely  different  spellings 
of  the~same  Old  English  word  ;  for  queen  represents 
Anglo-Saxon  cwen,  Gothic  qens,  whereas  quean  is  the 
phonetic  equivalent  of  Anglo-Saxon  cwene,  Gothic  qino.] 

\  Dilke,  Greater  Britain^  vol.  ii.  p.  4°- 


rv.  Intellectual  Currency.  i  S 


j 


art,  graven  with  rare  and  beautiful  devices,  or 
bearing  the  head  of  some  ancient  sage  or  hero 
king ;  while  others,  again,  were  the  sole  sur- 
viving monuments  of  mighty  nations  that  once 
filled  the  world  with  their  fame  ;  what  a  careless 
indifference  to  our  own  improvement — to  all 
which  men  hitherto  had  felt  or  wrought — would 
it  argue  in  us,  if  we  were  content  that  these 
should  come  and  go,  should  stay  by  us  or  pass 
from  us,  without  our  vouchsafing  to  them  so 
much  as  one  serious  regard.  Such  a  currency 
there  is,  a  currency  intellectual  and  spiritual  of 
no  meaner  worth,  and  one  with  which  we  have 
to  transact  so  much  of  the  higher  business  of  our 
lives.  Let  us  take  care  that  we  come  not  in 
this  matter  under  the  condemnation  of  any 
such  incurious  indifference  as  that  which  I  have 
imagined. 


184        On  the  Rise  0/  New  IVords.         uct. 


LECTURE  V. 
ON   THE   RISE  OF    NEW   WORDS. 

IF  I  do  not  much  mistake,  you  will  find  it  not 
a  little  interesting  to  follow  great  and  sig- 
nificant words  to  the  time  and  place  of  their 
birth.  And  not  these  alone.  The  same  interest, 
though  perhaps  not  in  so  high  a  degree,  will 
cleave  to  the  upcoming  of  words  not  a  few  that 
have  never  played  a  part  so  important  in  the 
world's  story.  A  volume  might  be  written  such 
as  few  would  rival  in  curious  interest,  which 
should  do  no  more  than  indicate  the  occasion 
upon  which  new  words,  or  old  words  employed 
in  a  new  sense — being  such  words  as  the  world 
subsequently  heard  much  of — first  appeared  ; 
with  quotation,  where  advisable,  of  the  passages 
in  proof.  A  great  English  poet,  too  early  lost, 
1  the  young  Marcellus  of  our  tongue,'  as  Dryden 
so  finely  calls  him,  has  very  grandly  described 

the  emotion  of 

'  some  watcher  of  the  skies, 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken.' 

Not  very  different    will  be    our    feeling,  as  we 
watch,  at  the  moment  of  its  rising  above  the 


v.  First  Appearance  of  Words.        185 

horizon,  some  word  destined,  it  may  be,  to  play 
its  part  in  the  world's  story,  to  take  its  place  for 
ever  among  the  luminaries  in  the  moral  and 
intellectual  firmament  above  us. 

But  a  caution  is  necessary  here.  We  must 
not  regard  as  certain  in  every  case,  or  indeed  in 
most  cases,  that  the  first  rise  of  a  word  will  have 
exactly  consented  in  time  with  its  first  appear- 
ance within  the  range  of  our  vision.  Such  iden- 
tity will  sometimes  exist ;  and  we  may  watch 
the  actual  birth  of  some  word,  and  may  affirm 
with  confidence  that  at  such  a  time  and  on  such 
an  occasion  it  first  saw  the  light — in  this  book, 
or  from  the  lips  of  that  man.  Of  another  we  can 
only  say,  About  this  time  and  near  about  this 
spot  it  first  came  into  being,  for  we  first  meet  it 
in  such  an  author  and  under  such  and  such  con- 
ditions. So  mere  a  fragment  of  ancient  litera- 
ture has  come  down  to  us,  that,  while  the  earliest 
appearance  there  of  a  word  is  still  most  instruc- 
tive to  note,  it  cannot  in  all  or  in  nearly  all  cases 
be  affirmed  to  mark  the  exact  moment  of  its 
nativity.  And  even  in  the  modern  world  we 
must  in  most  instances  be  content  to  fix  a  period, 
we  may  perhaps  add  a  local  habitation,  within 
the  limits  of  which  the  term  must  have  been  born, 
either  in  legitimate  scientific  travail,  or  the  child 
of  some  flash  of  genius,  or  the  product  of  some 
generatio  cequivoca,  the  necessary  result  of  ex- 
citing predisposing  causes  ;  at  the  same  time 
seeking  by  further  research  ever  to  narrow  more 


i86        O11  the  Rise  of  New  Words. 


LECT. 


and  more  the  limits  within  which  this  must  have 
happened. 

To  speak  first  of  words  religious  and  eccle- 
siastical. Very  noteworthy,  and  in  some  sort 
epoch-making,  must  be  regarded  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  following  : — '  Christian  '  ; '  '  Tri- 
nity '  ; 2  *  Catholic,'  as  applied  to  the  Church  ;  • 
'canonical,'  as  a  distinctive  title  of  the  received 
Scriptures  ; 4  '  New  Testament,'  as  describing 
the  complex  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  New 
Covenant ; 5  '  Gospels,'  as  applied  to  the  four 
inspired  records  of  the  life  and  ministry  of  our 
Lord.6  We  notice,  too,  with  interest,  the  first 
coming  up  of  '  monk  '  and  '  nun,' 7  marking  as 
they  do  the  beginnings  of  the  monastic  system  ; — 
of  '  transubstantiation,' 8  of '  concomitance,' 9  ex- 
pressing as  does  this  word  the  grounds  on  which 


1  Acts  xi.  26.  8  Tertullian,  Adv.  Prax.  3. 

3  Ignatius,  Ad  Smyrn.  8. 

•  Origen,  Opp.  vol.  iii.  p.  36  (ed.  De  la  Rue). 

6  Tertullian,  Adv.  Marc.  iv.  1  ;  Adv.  Prax.  xv.  20. 

•  Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  i.  66. 

7  '  Nun  '  (nonna)  first  appears  m  Jerome  (Ad  Eustoch. 
Ep.  22)  ;  '  monk  '  (monachus)  a  little  earlier  :  Rutilius,  a 
Latin  versifier  of  the  fifth  century,  who  still  clung  to  the 
old  Paganism,  gives  the  derivation  : 

Ipsi  se  monachos  Graio  cognomine  dicunt, 
Quod  soli  nullo  vivere  teste  volunt. 

•  Hildebert,  Archbishop  of  Tours  (f  1134),  is  the  first 
to  use  it  (Sernu  93). 

"  Thomas  Aquinas  is  reported  to  have  been  the  first 
to  use  this  word. 


».  First  Appearance  of  Words.        187 

the  medieval  Church  defended  communion  in 
one  kind  only  for  the  laity  ;  of  •  limbo '  in  its 
theological  sense ; l  witnessing  as  these  do  to 
the  consolidation  of  errors  which  had  long  been 
floating  in  the  Church. 

Not  of  so  profound  an  interest,  but  still  very 
instructive  to  note,  is  the  earliest  apparition  of 
names  historical  and  geographical,  above  all  of 
such  as  have  since  been  often  on  the  lips  of 
men  ;  as  the  first  mention  in  books  of  '  Asia ' ; 2 
of  '  India ' ; 3  of  '  Europe ' ; 4  of  Macedonia '  ; 5 
of  '  Greeks ' ; 6  of  '  Germans  '  and  '  Germany '  ; 7 
of  « Alemanni '  ; 8  of  '  Franks '  ; 9  of  '  Prussia  ' 
and  '  Prussians'; 10  of 'Normans';11  the  earliest 
notice  by  any  Greek  author  of  Rome  ; 12  the 
first  use  of  '  Italy '  as  comprehending  the  entire 


I  Thomas  Aquinas  first  employs '  limbus '  in  this  sense. 
3  ^Cschylus,  Prometheus  Vinctus,  412. 

3  Id.  Suppl.  282.      4  Herodotus,  iv.  36.      5  Id.  v.  17. 

6  Aristotle,  Meteor.  \.  14.  But  his  rpalxoi  are  only  an 
insignificant  tribe,  near  Dodona.  How  it  came  to  pass 
that  Graeci,  or  Graii,  was  the  Latin  name  by  which  all  the 
Hellenes  were  known,  must  always  remain  a  mystery. 

7  Probably  first  in  the  Commentaries  of  Caesar ;  see 
Grimm,  Gesch.  d.  Deutschen  Sprache,  p.  773. 

8  Spartian,  Caracalla,  c.  9. 

8  Vopiscus,  Aurel.  7  ;  about  A.D.  240. 

10  '  Pruzia '  and  '  Pruzzi '  first  appear  in  the  Life  of 
S.  Adalbert,  written  by  his  fellow-labourer  Gaudentius, 
between  997-1006. 

II  The  Geographer  of  Ravenna. 

12  Probably  in  Hellanicus,  a  contemporary  of  Hero- 
dotus. 


iSS        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.         ««. 

Hesperian  peninsula  ;*  of  'Asia  Minor'  to  de- 
signate Asia  on  this  side  Taurus.f    '  Madagascar ' 
may  hereafter  have  a  history,  which  will  make  it 
interesting  to  know    that    this    name   was  first 
given,  so  far  as  we  can  trace,  by  Marco  Polo  to 
the  huge  African  island.    Neither  can  we  regard 
with  indifference  the  first  giving  to  the  newly- 
discovered  continent  in  the  West  the  name  of 
'America';  and  still  less  should  we  Englishmen 
fail  to  take  note  of  the  date  when  this  island 
exchanged  its  earlier  name  of  Britain  for  '  Eng- 
land';  or  again,  when  it  resumed  'Great  Britain  ' 
as  its  official  designation.     So  also,  to  confirm 
our  assertion  by  examples  from  another  quarter, 
it  cannot   be   unprofitable   to    mark  the  exact 
moment  at  which  'tyrant'  and  'tyranny,'  forming 
so  distinct  an  epoch  as  this  did  in  the  political 
history   of  Greece,  first  appeared  ;  %   or   again, 


•  In  the  time  of  Augustus  Csesar ;  see  Niebuhr, 
History  of  Rome,  Engl.  Translation,  vol.  i.  p.  12. 

f  Orosius,  i.  2  :  in  the  fifth  century  of  our  era. 

\  In  the  writings  of  Archilochus,  about  700  B.C.  A 
'  tyrant '  was  not  for  Greeks  a  bad  king,  who  abused  a 
rightful  position  to  purposes  of  lust  or  cruelty  or  other 
wrong.  It  was  of  the  essence  of  a  'tyrant'  that  he  had 
attained  supreme  dominion  through  a  violation  of  the 
laws  and  liberties  of  the  state  ;  having  done  which,  what- 
ever the  moderation  of  his  after-rule,  he  would  not  escape 
the  name.  Thus  the  mild  and  bounteous  Pisistratus  was 
'tyrant'  of  Athens,  while  a  Christian  II.  of  Denmark, 
'  the  Nero  of  the  North,'  would  not  in  Greek  eyes  have 


v.  Christians  first  at  Antioch.         189 

when,  and  from  whom,  the  fabric  of  the  external 
universe  first  received  the  title  of  '  cosmos,'  or 
beautiful  order  ;  *  a  name  not  new  in  itself,  but 
new  in  this  application  of  it;  with  much  more  of 
the  same  kind. 

Let  us  go  back  to  one  of  the  words  just 
named,  and  inquire  what  may  be  learned  from 
acquaintance  with  the  time  and  place  of  its  first 
appearance.  It  is  one  the  coming  up  of  which 
has  found  special  record  in  the  Book  of  life  : 
*  The  disciples,'  as  St.  Luke  expressly  tells  us, 
'were  called  Christians  first  in  Antioch'  (Acts 
xi.  26).  That  we  have  here  a  notice  which  we 
would  not  willingly  have  missed  all  will  acknow- 
ledge, even  as  nothing  can  be  otherwise  than 
curious  which  relates  to  the  infancy  of  the  Church. 
But  there  is  here  much  more  than  an  interesting 


been  one.  It  was  to  their  honour  that  they  did  not  allow 
the  course  of  the  word  to  be  arrested  or  turned  aside  by 
occasional  or  partial  exceptions  in  the  manner  of  the 
exercise  of  this  ill-gotten  dominion  ;  but  in  the  hateful 
secondary  sense  which  'tyrant'  with  them  acquired,  and 
which  has  passed  over  to  us,  the  moral  conviction,  justi- 
fied by  all  experience,  spake  out,  that  tb;  ill-gotten  would 
be  ill-kept ;  that  the  '  tyrant'  in  the  earlier  sense  of  the 
word,  dogged  by  suspicion,  fear,  and  an  evil  conscience, 
must,  by  an  almost  inevitable  law,  become  a  '  tyrant '  in 
our  later  sense  of  the  word. 

*  Pythagoras,  born  B.C.  570,  is  said  to  have  been  the 
first  who  made  this  application  of  the  word.  For  much 
of  interest  on  its  history  see  Humboldt,  /Cosmos,  1846. 
English  edit.,  vol.  i.  p.  371. 


190       On  the  Rise  of  New  Woi'ds.         user. 

notice.  Question  it  a  little  closer,  and  how  much 
it  will  be  found  to  contain,  how  much  which  it 
is  waiting  to  yield  up.  What  light  it  throws  on 
the  whole  story  of  the  apostolic  Church  to  know 
where  and  when  this  name  of  '  Christians '  was 
first  imposed  on  the  faithful  ;  for  imposed  by 
adversaries  it  certainly  was,  not  devised  by 
themselves,  however  afterwards  they  may  have 
learned  to  glory  in  it  as  the  name  of  highest 
dignity  and  honour.  They  did  not  call  them- 
selves, but,  as  is  expressly  recorded,  they  '  were 
called,'  Christians  first  at  Antioch ;  in  agree- 
ment with  which  statement,  the  name  occurs 
nowhere  in  Scripture,  except  on  the  lips  of 
those  alien  from,  or  opposed  to,  the  faith  (Acts 
xxvi.  28  ;  1  Pet.  iv.  16).  And  as  it  was  a  name 
imposed  by  adversaries,  so  among  these  adver- 
saries it  was  plainly  heathens,  and  not  Jew?, 
who  were  its  authors  ;  for  Jews  would  never 
have  called  the  followers  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
'  Christians,'  or  those  of  Christ,  the  very  point  of 
their  opposition  to  Him  being,  that  He  was  not 
the  Christ,  but  a  false  pretender  to  the  name.* 

Starting  then  from  this  point,  that  '  Chris- 
tians '  was  a  title  given  to  the  disciples  by  the 
heathen,  what  may  we  deduce  from  it  further  ? 


•  Compare  Tacitus  {Annul,  xv.  44) :  Quos  vulgus  .  ,  . 
Christianos  appellabat.  It  is  curious  too  that,  although 
a  Greek  word  and  coined  in  a  Greek  city,  the  termination 
is  Latin.  Xpto-riavos  is  formed  on  the  model  of  Romanus, 
AJbanus,  Pompeianus,  and  the  like. 


Christians  first  at  A  ntioch.  1 9 1 


At  Antioch  they  first  obtained  this  name — at  the 
city,  that  is,  which  was  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Church's  missions  to  the  heathen,  in  the  same 
sense  as  Jerusalem  had  been  the  head-quarters 
of  the  mission  to  the  seed  of  Abraham.  It  was 
there,  and  among  the  faithful  there,  that  a  con- 
viction of  the  world-wide  destination  of  the 
Gospel  arose  ;  there  it  was  first  plainly  seen  as 
intended  for  all  kindreds  of  the  earth.  Hitherto 
the  faithful  in  Christ  had  been  called  by  their 
adversaries,  and  indeed  often  were  still  called, 
'  Galileans,'  or  '  Nazarenes,' — both  names  which 
indicated  the  Jewish  cradle  wherein  the  Church 
had  been  nursed,  and  that  the  world  saw  in  the 
new  Society  no  more  than  a  Jewish  sect.  But 
it  was  plain  that  the  Church  had  now,  even  in  the 
world's  eyes,  chipped  its  Jewish  shell.  The  name 
1  Christians,'  or  those  of  Christ,  while  it  told  that 
Christ  and  the  confession  of  Him  was  felt  even 
by  the  heathen  to  be  the  sum  and  centre  of  this 
new  faith,  showed  also  that  they  comprehended 
now,  not  all  which  the  Church  would  be,  but 
something  of  this  ;  saw  this  much,  namely,  that 
it  was  no  mere  sect  and  variety  of  Judaism,  but 
a  Society  with  a  mission  and  a  destiny  of  its  own. 
Nor  will  the  thoughtful  reader  fail  to  observe 
that  the  coming  up  of  this  name  is  by  closest 
juxtaposition  connected  in  the  sacred  narrative, 
and  still  more  closely  in  the  Greek  than  in  the 
English,  with  the  arrival  at  Antioch,  and  with 
the  preaching  there,  of  that  Apostle,  who  was 


192       On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

God's  appointed  instrument  for  bringing  the 
Church  to  a  full  sense  that  the  message  which  it 
had,  was  not  for  some  men  only,  but  for  all.  As 
so  often  happens  with  the  rise  of  new  names, 
the  rise  of  this  one  marked  a  new  epoch  in  the 
Church's  life,  and  that  it  was  entering  upon  a 
new  stage  of  its  development.*  It  is  a  small 
matter,  yet  not  without  its  own  significance,  that 
the  invention  of  this  name  is  laid  by  St.  Luke, 
— for  so,  I  think,  we  may  confidently  say, — to 
the  credit  of  the  Antiochenes.  Now  the  idle, 
frivolous,  and  witty  inhabitants  of  the  Syrian 
capital  were  noted  in  all  antiquity  for  the  inven- 
tion of  nicknames  ;  it  was  a  manufacture  for 
which  their  city  was  famous.  And  thus  it  was 
exactly  the  place  where  beforehand  we  might 


*  Renan  (Les  Apotres,  pp.  233-236)  has  much  instruc- 
tion on  this  matter.  I  quote  a  few  words  ;  though  even 
in  them  the  spirit  in  which  the  whole  book  is  conceived 
does  not  fail  to  make  itself  felt  :  L'heure  ou  une  creation 
nouvelle  recoit  son  nom  est  solennelle  ;  car  le  nom  est  le 
signe  definitif  de  l'existence.  C'est  par  le  nom  qu'un  etre 
individuel  ou  collectif  devient  lui-meme,  et  sort  d'un  autre. 
La  formation  du  mot  'chre'tien'  marque  ainsi  la  date 
precise  011  l'Eglise  de  Jdsus  se  separa  du  judaisme.  .  .  . 
Le  christianisme  est  completement  detache"  du  sein  de 
sa  mere ;  la  vraie  pensee  de  J^sus  a  triomphe"  de  Pinde- 
cision  de  ses  premiers  disciples  ;  l'Eglise  de  Jerusalem 
est  depassee  ;  l'Arame'en,  la  langue  de  Je"sus,  est  inconnue 
a  une  partie  de  son  ecole  ;  le  christianisme  parlegrec  ;  il 
est  lance  definitivement  dans  le  grand  tourbillon  du  monde 
grec  et  romain  ;  d'ou  il  ne  sortira  plus. 


New  Thoughts  claim  New  Words.    193 


have  expected  that  such  a  title,  being  a  nickname 
or  little  better  in  their  mouths  who  devised  it 
should  first  come  into  being. 

This  one  example  is  sufficient  to  show  that 
new  words  will  often  repay  any  amount  of  atten- 
tion which  we  may  bestow  upon  them,  and  upon 
the  conditions  under  which  they  were  born.  I 
proceed  to  consider  the  causes  which  suggest  or 
necessitate  their  birth,  the  periods  when  a  lan- 
guage is  most  fruitful  in  them,  the  sources  from 
which  they  usually  proceed,  with  some  other  in- 
teresting phenomena  about  them. 

And  first  of  the  causes  which  give  them  birth. 
Now  of  all  these  causes  the  noblest  is  this — 
namely,  that  in  the  appointments  of  highest 
Wisdom  there  are  epochs  in  the  world's  history, 
in  which,  more  than  at  other  times,  new  moral 
and  spiritual  forces  are  at  work,  stirring  to  their 
central  depths  the  hearts  of  men.  When  it  thus 
fares  with  a  people,  they  make  claims  on  their 
language  which  were  never  made  on  it  beforet 
It  is  required  to  utter  truths,  to  express  ideas, 
remote  from  it  hitherto  ;  for  which  therefore 
the  adequate  expression  will  naturally  not  be 
forthcoming  at  once,  these  new  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings being  larger  and  deeper  than  any  wherewith 
hitherto  the  speakers  of  that  tongue  had  been 
familiar.  It  fares  with  a  language  then,  as  it 
would  fare  with  a  river  bed,  suddenly  required  to 
deliver  a  far  larger  volume  of  waters  than  had 
hitherto  been  its  wont.      It  would  in  such  a  case 

O 


194        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lkct. 

be  nothing  strange,  if  the  waters  surmounted 
their  banks,  broke  forth  on  the  right  hand  and 
on  the  left,  forced  new  channels  with  a  certain 
violence  for  themselves.  Something  of  the  kind 
they  must  do.  Now  it  was  exactly  thus  that  it 
fared — for  there  could  be  no  more  illustrious 
examples — with  the  languages  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  when  it  was  demanded  of  them  that  they 
should  be  vehicles  of  the  truths  of  revelation. 

These  languages,  as  they  already  existed, 
might  have  sufficed,  and  did  suffice,  for  heathen- 
ism, sensuous  and  finite  ;  but  they  did  not  suffice 
for  the  spiritual  and  infinite,  for  the  truths  at 
once  so  new  and  so  mighty  which  claimed  now 
to  find  utterance  in  the  language  of  men.  And 
thus  it  continually  befel,  that  the  new  thought 
must  weave  a  new  garment  for  itself,  those 
which  it  found  ready  made  being  narrower  than 
that  it  could  wrap  itself  in  them  ;  that  the  new 
wine  must  fashion  new  vessels  for  itself,  if  both 
should  be  preserved,  the  old  being  neither  strong 
enough,  nor  expansive  enough,  to  hold  it*  Thus, 
not  to  speak  of  mere  technical  matters,  which 
would  claim  an  utterance,  how  could  the  Greek 
language  possess  a  word  for  '  idolatry/  so  long 


*  Renan,  speaking  on  this  matter,  says  of  the  early 
Christians  :  La  langue  leur  faisait  deTaut.  Le  Grec  et  le 
Semitique  les  trahissaient  £galement.  De  la  cette  enorme 
violence  que  le  Christianisme  naissant  fit  au  langage  (Les 
Apotres,  p.  71 


».  New  Words  necessary.  195 

as  the  sense  of  the  awful  contrast  between  the 
worship  of  the  living  God  and  of  dead  things  had 
not  risen  up  in  their  minds  that  spoke  it  ?  But 
when  Greek  began  to  be  the  native  language  of 
men,  to  whom  this  distinction  between  the  Crea- 
tor and  the  creature  was  the  most  earnest  and 
deepest  conviction  of  their  souls,  words  such  as 
1  idolatry,'  '  idolater,'  of  necessity  appeared.  The 
heathen  did  not  claim  for  their  deities  to  be 
4  searchers  of  hearts,'  did  not  disclaim  for  them 
the  being  '  accepters  of  persons  ' ;  such  attributes 
of  power  and  righteousness  entered  not  into  their 
minds  as  pertaining  to  the  objects  of  their  wor- 
ship. The  Greek  language,  therefore,  so  long  as 
they  only  employed  it,  had  not  the  words  cor- 
responding.* It,  indeed,  could  not  have  had 
them,  as  the  Jewish  Hellenistic  Greek  could 
not  be  without  them.  How  useful  a  word  is 
'  theocracy ' ;  what  good  service  it  has  rendered 
in  presenting  a  certain  idea  clearly  and  distinctly 
to  the  mind  ;  yet  where,  except  in  the  bosom 
of  the  same  Jewish  Greek,  could  it  have  been 
born  ?  f 

These  difficulties,  which  were  felt  the  most 
strongly  when  the  thought  and  feeling  that  had 
been  at  home  in  the  Hebrew,  the  original  lan- 
guage of  inspiration,  needed  to  be  transferred 


•   Upoa-coTroK^TTTTii,  Kap8ioyva><rTT)s. 

t  We  preside  at  its  birth  in  a  passage  of  Josephus, 
Con.  Apion.  ii.  16. 

oa 


196        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.       lect. 

into  Greek,  reappeared,  though  not  in  quite  so 
aggravated  a  form,  when  that  which  had  gra- 
dually woven  for  itself  in  the  Greek  an  adequate 
clothing,  again  demanded  to  find  a  suitable  gar- 
ment in  the  Latin.  An  example  of  the  difficulty, 
and  of  the  way  in  which  the  difficulty  was  ulti- 
mately overcome,  will  illustrate  this  far  better 
than  long  disquisitions.  The  classical  language 
of  Greece  had  a  word  for  '  saviour,'  which, 
though  often  degraded  to  unworthy  uses,  be- 
stowed as  a  title  of  honour  not  merely  on  the 
false  gods  of  heathendom,  but  sometimes  on 
men,  such  as  better  deserved  to  be  styled  '  de- 
stroyers '  than  '  saviours '  of  their  fellows,  was 
yet  in  itself  not  unequal  to  the  setting  forth  the 
central  office  and  dignity  of  Him,  who  came 
into  the  world  to  save  it  The  word  might  be 
likened  to  some  profaned  temple,  which  needed 
a  new  consecration,  but  not  to  be  abolished,  and 
another  built  in  its  room.  With  the  Latin  it 
was  otherwise.  The  language  seemed  to  lack  a 
word,  which  on  one  account  or  another  Christians 
needed  continually  to  utter  :  indeed  Cicero,  than 
whom  none  could  know  better  the  resources  of 
his  own  tongue,  remarkably  enough  had  noted 
its  want  of  any  single  equivalent  to  the  Greek 
'saviour.'*  '  Salvator '  would  have  been  the 
natural   word  ;   but   the  classical  Latin  of  the 


•  Hoc  [o-cort/p]  quantum  est  ?  ita  magnum  ut  Latine 
uno  verbo  exprimi  non  possit. 


».  Salvator  new  in  Latin.  197 

best  times,  though  it  had  '  salus '  and  '  salvus,' 
had  neither  this,  nor  the  verb  '  salvare ' ;  some, 
indeed,  have  thought  that  '  salvare '  had  always 
existed  in  the  common  speech.  '  Servator  '  was 
instinctively  felt  to  be  insufficient,  even  as  '  Pre- 
server '  would  for  us  fall  very  short  of  uttering 
all  which  '  Saviour  '  does  now.  The  seeking  of 
the  strayed,  the  recovery  of  the  lost,  the  healing 
of  the  sick,  would  all  be  but  feebly  and  faintly 
suggested  by  it,  if  suggested  at  all.  God  ' pre- 
serveth  man  and  beast,'  but  He  is  the  '  Saviour ' 
of  his  own  in  a  more  inward  and  far  more  en- 
dearing sense.  It  was  long  before  the  Latin 
Christian  writers  extricated  themselves  from 
this  embarrassment,  for  the  '  Salutificator'  of 
Tertullian,  the  '  Sospitator  '  of  another,  assuredly 
did  not  satisfy  the  need.  The  strong  good 
sense  of  Augustine  finally  disposed  of  the  diffi- 
culty. He  made  no  scruple  about  using  '  Sal- 
vator ' ;  observing  with  a  true  insight  into  the 
conditions  under  which  new  words  should  be 
admitted,  that  however  '  Salvator '  might  not 
have  been  good  Latin  before  the  Saviour  came, 
He  by  his  coming  and  by  the  work  had  made  it 
such  ;  for,  as  shadows  wait  upon  substances,  so 
words  wait  upon  things.*   Take  another  example. 


*  Serm.  299.  6  :  Christus  Jesus,  id  est  Christus  Sal- 
vator :  hoc  est  enim  Latine  Jesus.  Nee  quaerant  gram- 
matici  quam  sit  Latinum,  sed  Christiani,  quam  verum. 
Salus  enim  Latinum  nomen  est ;  salvare  et  salvator  non 
fuerunt  haec  Latina,  antequam  veniret  Salvator  :  quando 


198        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

It  seemed  so  natural  a  thing,  in  the  old  heathen 
world,  to  expose  infants,  where  it  was  not  found 
convenient  to  rear  them,  the  crime  excited  so 
little  remark,  was  so  little  regarded  as  a  crime 
at  all,  that  it  seemed  not  worth  the  while  to  find 
a  name  for  it  ;  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
word  '  infanticidium  '  was  first  born  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Christian  Church,  Tertullian  being  the 
earliest  in  whose  writings  it  appears. 

Yet  it  is  not  only  when  new  truth,  moral  or 
spiritual,  has  thus  to  fit  itself  to  the  lips  of  men, 
that  such  enlargements  of  speech  become  neces- 
sary :  but  in  each  further  unfolding  of  those 
seminal  truths  implanted  in  man  at  the  first,  in 


ad  Latinos  venit,  et  haec  Latina  fecit.  Cf.  De  Trin.  13. 
10  :  Quod  verbum  [salvator]  Latina  lingua  antea  non 
habebat,  sed  habere  poterat ;  sicut  potuit  quando  voluit. 
Other  words  which  we  owe  to  Christian  Latin,  probably 
to  the  Vulgate  or  to  the  earlier  Latin  translations,  are 
these— '  carnalis,'  '  clarifico,'  'compassio,'  'deitas'  (Au- 
gustine, Civ.  Dei,  7.  1),  'glorifico,'  'idololatria,'  'incar- 
natio,'  'justifico,'  'justificatio,'  '  longanimitas,'  'mortifico,' 
'  magnalia,'  'mundicors,'  '  passio,'  '  praedestinatio,'  're- 
frigerium'  (Ronsch,  Vulgata,  p.  321),  '  regeneratio,' 
'  resipiscentia,'  'revelatio,'  '  sanctificatio,'  'soliloquium,' 
'  sufficientia,' « supererogatio,'  '  tribulatio.'  Many  of  these 
may  seem  barbarous  to  the  Latin  scholar,  but  there  is 
hardly  one  of  them  which  does  not  imply  a  new  thought, 
or  a  new  feeling,  or  the  sense  of  a  new  relation  of  man  to 
God  or  to  his  fellow-man.  Strange  too  and  significant 
that  heathen  Latin  could  get  as  far  as  « peccare '  and 
'  peccatum,'  but  stopped  short  of  '  peccator '  and  •  pec- 
catrix.' 


v.  Transplantation  of  Thoughts.       199 

each  new  enlargement  of  his  sphere  of  know- 
ledge, outward  or  inward,  the  same  necessities 
make  themselves  felt.  The  beginnings  and 
progressive  advances  of  moral  philosophy  in 
Greece,*  the  transplantation  of  the  same  to 
Rome,  the  rise  of  the  scholastic,  and  then  of  the 
mystic,  theology  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  dis- 
coveries of  modern  science  and  natural  philo- 
sophy, these  each  and  all  have  been  accom- 
panied with  corresponding  extensions  in  the 
domain  of  language.  Of  the  words  to  which 
each  of  these  has  in  turn  given  birth,  many,  it  is 
true,  have  never  travelled  beyond  their  own 
peculiar  sphere,  having  remained  purely  techni- 
cal, or  scientific,  or  theological  to  the  last ;  but 
many,  too,  have  passed  over  from  the  laboratory 
and  the  school,  from  the  cloister  and  the  pulpit, 
into  everyday  use,  and  have,  with  the  ideas  which 
they  incorporate,  become  the  common  heritage 
of  all.  For  however  hard  and  repulsive  a  front 
any  study  or  science  may  present  to  the  great 
body  of  those  who  are  as  laymen  in  regard  of  it, 
there  is  yet  inevitably  such  a  detrition  as  this 
continually  going  forward,  and  one  which  it 
would  be  well  worth  while  to  trace  in  detail. 

Where  the  movement  is  a  popular  one,  stir- 
ring the  heart  and  mind  of  a  people  to  its 
depths,  there  these  new  words  will  for  the  most 
part  spring  out  of  their  bosom,  a  free   spon- 


•  See  Lobeck,  Phrynichus,  p.  350. 


200        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

tancous  birth,  seldom  or  never  capable  of  being 
referred  to  one  man  more  than  another,  because 
in  a  manner  they  belong  to  all.  Where,  on  the 
contrary,  the  movement  is  more  strictly  theo- 
logical, or  has  for  its  sphere  those  regions  of 
science  and  philosophy,  where,  as  first  pioneers 
and  discoverers,  only  a  few  can  bear  their  part, 
there  the  additions  to  the  language  and  exten- 
sions of  it  will  lack  something  of  the  freedom, 
the  unconscious  boldness,  which  mark  the  others. 
Their  character  will  be  more  artificial,  less 
spontaneous,  although  here  also  the  creative 
genius  of  a  single  man,  as  there  of  a  nation,  will 
oftentimes  set  its  mark  ;  and  many  a  single  word 
will  come  forth,  which  will  be  the  result  of  pro- 
found meditation,  or  of  intuitive  genius,  or  of 
both  in  happiest  combination — many  a  word, 
which  shall  as  a  torch  illuminate  vast  regions 
comparatively  obscure  before,  and,  it  may  be, 
cast  its  rays  far  into  the  yet  unexplored  darkness 
beyond  ;  or  which,  summing  up  into  itself  all 
the  acquisitions  in  a  particular  direction  of  the 
past,  shall  furnish  a  mighty  vantage-ground  from 
which  to  advance  to  new  conquests  in  those 
realms  of  mind  or  of  nature,  not  as  yet  subdued 
to  the  intellect  and  uses  of  man. 

'  Cosmopolite '  has  often  now  a  shallow  or 
even  a  mischievous  use  ;  and  he  who  calls  him- 
self a  '  cosmopolite '  may  mean  no  more  than 
that  he  is  not  a  patriot,  that  his  native  country 
docs    not  possess   his   love.     Yet,  as    all  must 


Cosmopolite^  Poet.  201 


admit,  he  could  have  been  no  common  man 
who,  before  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  launched 
this  word  upon  the  world,  and  claimed  this  name 
for  himself.  Nor  was  he  a  common  man  ;  for 
Diogenes  the  Cynic,  whose  sayings  are  among 
quite  the  most  notable  in  antiquity,  was  its 
author.  Being  demanded  of  what  city  or  country 
he  was,  Diogenes  answered  that  he  was  a  '  cos- 
mopolite' ;  in  this  word  widening  the  range  of 
men's  thoughts,  bringing  in  not  merely  a  word 
new  to  Greek  ears,  but  a  thought  which,  how- 
ever commonplace  and  familiar  to  us  now,  must 
have  been  most  novel  and  startling  to  those 
whom  he  addressed.  I  am  far  from  asserting 
that  contempt  for  his  citizenship  in  its  narrower 
sense  may  not  have  mingled  with  this  his  chal- 
lenge for  himself  of  a  citizenship  wide  as  the 
world  ;  but  there  was  not  the  less  a  very  re- 
markable reaching  out  here  after  truths  which 
were  not  fully  born  into  the  world  until  He  came, 
in  whom  and  in  whose  Church  all  national  .dif- 
ferences and  distinctions  are  done  away. 

As  occupying  somewhat  of  a  middle  place 
between  those  more  deliberate  word-makers  and 
the  multitude  whose  words  rather  grow  of  them-  \\ 
selves  than  are  made,  we  must  not  omit  him  who 
is  a  maker  by  the  very  right  of  his  name — I 
mean,  the  poet.  That  creative  energy  with  which 
he  is  endowed,  '  the  high-flying  liberty  of  con- 
ceit proper  to  the  poet,'  will  not  fail  to  manifest 
itself  in  this  region  as  in  others.    Extending  the 


202        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        ukt. 

domain  of  thought  and  feeling,  he  will  scarcely 
fail  to  extend  that  also  of  language,  which  does 
not  willingly  lag  behind.     And  the  loftier  his 
moods,  the  more  of  this  maker  he  will  be.     The 
passion  of  such  times,  the  all-fusing  imagination, 
will  at   once   suggest  and  justify  audacities  in 
speech,  upon  which  in  calmer  moods  he  would 
not    have   ventured,  or,  venturing,  would   have 
failed  to  carry  others  with  him :  for  it  is  only  the 
fluent  metal  that  runs  easily  into  novel  shapes 
and  moulds.     Nor  is  it  merely  that  the  old  and 
the  familiar  will  often  become  new  in  the  poet's 
hands  ;   that  he  will  give  the  stamp  of  allow- 
ance, as  to  him  will  be  free  to  do,  to  words 
which  hitherto  have  lived  only  on  the  lips  of 
the  people,  or  been  confined  to  some  single  dia- 
lect and  province  ;  but  he  will  enrich  his  native 
tongue  with  words  unknown  and  non-existent 
before — non-existent,  that  is,  save  in  their  ele- 
ments ;  for  in  the  historic  period  of  a  language 
it  is  not  permitted  to  any  man  to  do  more  than 
work  on  pre-existent  materials  ;  to  evolve  what 
is  latent  therein,  to  combine  what  is  apart,  to 
recall  what  has  fallen  out  of  sight. 

But  to  return  to  the  more  deliberate  coining 
of  words.  New  necessities  have  within  the  last 
few  years  called  out  several  of  these  deliberate 
creations  in  our  own  language.  The  almost 
simultaneous  discovery  of  such  large  abundance 
of  gold  in  so  many  quarters  of  the  world  led 
some  nations  so  much  to  dread   an  enormous 


r.  Extradition,  Neutralization.        203 

depreciation  of  this  metal,  that  they  ceased  to 
make  it  the  standard  of  value — Holland  for 
instance  did  so  for  a  while,  though  she  has 
since  changed  her  mind  ;  and  it  has  been  found 
convenient  to  invent  a  word,  '  to  demonetize,'  to 
express  this  process  of  turning  a  precious  metal 
from  being  the  legal  standard  into  a  mere 
article  of  commerce.  So,  too,  diplomacy  has 
recently  added  more  than  one  new  word  to  our 
vocabulary.  I  suppose  nobody  ever  heard  of 
'  extradition  '  till  within  the  last  few  years  ;  nor 
of  '  neutralization,'  except,  it  might  be,  in  some 
treatise  upon  chemistry,  till  in  the  treaty  of  peace 
which  followed  the  Crimean  War  the  '  neutrali- 
zation '  of  the  Black  Sea  was  made  one  of  the 
stipulations.  '  Secularization,'  in  like  manner, 
owes  its  birth  to  the  long  and  weary  negotiations 
which  preceded  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  (1648). 
Whenever  it  proved  difficult  to  find  anywhere 
else  compensation  for  some  powerful  claimant, 
there  was  always  some  abbey  or  bishopric  which 
with  its  revenues  might  be  seized,  stripped  of  its 
ecclesiastical  character,  and  turned  into  a  secular 
possession.  Our  manifold  points  of  contact 
with  the  East,  the  necessity  that  has  thus  arisen 
of  representing  oriental  words  to  the  western 
world  by  means  of  an  alphabet  not  its  own, 
with  the  manifold  discussions  on  the  fittest 
equivalents,  all  this  has  brought  with  it  the  need 
of  a  word  which  should  describe  the  process, 
and  '  transliteration  '  is  the  result. 


204        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words 


We  have  long  had  'assimilation'  in  our  dic- 
tionaries ;  '  dissimilation '  has  as  yet  scarcely 
found  its  way  into  them,  but  it  speedily  will. 
[It  has  already  appeared  in  our  books  on  lan- 
guage.*] Advances  in  philology  have  rendered 
it  a  matter  of  necessity  that  we  should  possess  a 
term  to  designate  a  certain  process  which  words 
unconsciously  undergo,  and  no  other  would  de- 
signate it  at  all  so  well.  There  is  a  process  of 
'  assimilation  '  going  on  very  extensively  in  lan- 
guage ;  the  organs  of  speech  finding  themselves 
helped  by  changing  one  letter  for  another  which 
has  just  occurred,  or  will  just  occur  in  a  word  ; 
thus  we  say  not  '  a^iance,'  but  « a/fiance,'  not 

•  renowm,'  as  our  ancestors  did  when  '  renom ' 
was  first  naturalized,  but '  renown  ' ;  we  say  too, 
though  we  do  not  write  it,  •  cupboard '  and  not 
'  cupboard,' '  surtle '  and  not '  subtle.'  But  side  by 
side  with  this  there  is  another  opposite  process, 
where  some  letter  would  recur  too  often  for 
euphony  or  ease  in  speaking,  were  the  strict  form 
of  the  word  too  closely  held  fast  ;  and  where 
consequently  this  letter  is  exchanged  for  some 
other,  generally  for  some    nearly  allied  ;    thus 

*  caemleus  '  was  once  '  cae/uleus,'  from  caelum  f ; 

*  See  Skeafs  Etym.  Diet.  (s.  v.  truffle).  Pott  {Etym. 
Forsch.  vol.  ii.  p.  65)  introduced  the  word  '  dissimilation ' 
into  German. 

t  [The  connexion  of  cceruleus  with  cczlum  is  not  at 
all  certain.] 


Dissimilation.  205 


"mendies*  is  for  'me^/idies,'  or  medius  dies.  In 
the  same  way  the  Italians  prefer  've/eno'  to 
•  veweno  ' ;  the  Germans  '  ^artoffel '  to  '  /artufTel,' 
from  Italian  '  tartufola'  =  Latin  terrae  tuber, 
an  old  name  of  the  potato  ;  and  we  '  cinnamon  ' 
to  '  cinnamow '  (the  earlier  form).  So  too  in 
'  turtle,'  '  marble,'  '  purple/  we  have  shrunk 
from  the  double  fr'  of  '  turtur,'  '  marmor,' 
'  purpura.'* 

New  necessities,  new  evolutions  of  society 
into  more  complex  conditions,  evoke  new  words  ; 
which  come  forth,  because  they  are  required 
now  ;  but  did  not  formerly  exist,  because  in  an 
anterior  period  they  were  not  required.  For 
example,  in  Greece  so  long  as  the  poet  sang  his 
own  verses, '  singer  '(aotSbs)  sufficiently  expressed 
the  double  function  ;  such  a  '  singer '  was  Homer, 
and  such  Homer  describes  Demodocus,  the  bard 
of  the  Phaeacians ;  that  double  function,  in  fact, 
not  being  in  his  time  contemplated  as  double, 
but  each  of  its  parts  so  naturally  completing  the 
other,  that  no  second  word  was  required.  When, 
however,  in  the  division  of  labour  one  made  the 
verses  which  another  chaunted,  then  '  poet '  or 
1  maker,'  a  word  unknown  to  the  Homeric  age, 


*  See  Dwight,  Modern  Philblogy,  2nd  Series,  p.  ioo  ; 
Heyse,  System  der  Sprachwissenschaft,  %  1 39-1 41  ;  and 
Peile,  Introduction  to  Greek  and  Latin  Etymology^  pp. 
357-379- 


206        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.       l*ct. 

arose.  In  like  manner,  when  '  physicians  '  were 
the  only  natural  philosophers,  the  word  covered 
this  meaning  as  well  as  that  other  which  it  still 
retains  ;  but  when  the  investigation  of  nature 
and  natural  causes  detached  itself  from  the  art 
of  healing,  became  an  independent  study,  the 
name  '  physician  '  remained  to  that  which  was  as 
the  stock  and  stem  of  the  art,  while  the  new  off- 
shoot sought  out  and  obtained  a  new  name  for 
itself. 

But  it  is  not  merely  new  things  which  will 
require  new  names.  It  will  often  be  discovered 
that  old  things  have  not  got  a  name  at  all,  or, 
having  one,  are  compelled  to  share  it  with  some- 
thing else,  often  to  the  serious  embarrassment  of 
both.  The  manner  in  which  men  become  aware 
of  such  deficiencies,  is  commonly  this.  Com- 
paring their  own  language  with  another,  and  in. 
some  aspects  a  richer,  compelled,  it  may  be,  to 
such  comparison  through  having  undertaken  to 
transfer  treasures  of  that  language  into  their  own, 
they  become  conscious  of  much  worthy  to  be 
uttered  in  human  speech,  and  plainly  utterable 
therein,  since  another  language  has  found  utter- 
ance for  it ;  but  which  hitherto  has  found  no 
voice  in  their  own.  Hereupon  with  more  or 
less  success  they  proceed  to  supply  the  defi- 
ciency. Hardly  in  any  other  way  would  the 
wants  in  this  way  revealed  make  themselves 
felt  even  by  the  most  thoughtful ;  for  language 


Wants  detected.  207 


is  to  so  large  an  extent  the  condition  and  limit 
of  thought,  men  are  so  little  accustomed,  indeed 
so    little   able,   to   contemplate   things,   except 
through  the  intervention,  and  by  the  machinery, 
of  words,  that  the  absence  of  words  from  a  lan- 
guage almost  necessarily  brings  with  it  the  ab- 
sence of  any  sense  of  that  absence.     Here  is  one 
advantage  of  acquaintance  with  other  languages 
besides  our  own,  and  of  the  institution  that  will 
follow,  if  we  have  learned    those  other  to  any 
profit,  of  such  comparisons,  namely,  that  we  thus 
become  aware  that  names  are  not,  and  least  of 
all  the  names  in  any  one  language,  co-extensive 
with  things  (and  by  '  things '  I  mean  subjects  as 
well  as  objects   of  thought,  whatever  one  can 
think  about),  that  innumerable  things  and  aspects 
of  things  exist,  which,  though  capable  of  being 
resumed  and  connoted  in  a  word,  are  yet  with- 
out one,  unnamed  and  unregistered  ;  and  thus, 
vast  as  may  be  the  world  of  names,  that  the  world 
of  realities,  and  of  realities  which  are  nameable,  is 
vaster  still.     Such  discoveries  the  Romans  made, 
when  they  sought  to  transplant  the  moral  philo- 
sophy of  Greece  to  an   Italian  soil.     They  dis- 
covered that  many  of  its  terms  had  no  equivalents 
with  them  ;  which  equivalents   thereupon  they 
proceeded  to  devise   for  themselves,  appealing 
for  this  to  the  latent  capabilities  of  their  own 
tongue.     For  example,  the  Greek  schools  had  a 
word,  and  one  playing  no  unimportant  part  in 
some  of  their  philosophical  systems,  to  express 


2o8        On  the  Rise  of  New  Wo7-ds. 


LKCT. 


'  apathy,'  or  the  absence  of  all  passion  and  pain. 
As  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  possess  a  cor- 
responding word,  Cicero  invented  •  indolentia,' 
as  that  '  if  I  may  so  speak  '  with  which  he  paves 
the  way  to  his  first  introduction  of  it,  sufficiently 
declares.* 

Sometimes, indeed,  such  a  skilful  mint-master 
of  words,  such  a  subtle  watcher  and  weigher  of 
their  force  as  was  Cicero,f  will  have  noticed  even 
apart  from  this  comparison  with  other  languages, 
an  omission  in  his  own,  which  thereupon  he  will 
endeavour  to  supply.  Thus  the  Latin  had  two 
adjectives  which,  though  not  kept  apart  as 
strictly  as  they  might  have  been,  possessed  each 
its  peculiar  meaning,  '  invidus,'  one  who  is  en- 
vious, •  invidiosus,'  one  who  excites  envy  in 
others  ;  \  at  the  same  time  there  was  only  one 
substantive,  'invidia,'  the  correlative  of  them 
both  ;  with  the  disadvantage,  therefore,  of  being 
employed  now  in  an  active,  now  in  a  passive 
sense,  now  for  the  envy  which  men  feel,  and  now 
for  the  envy  which  they  excite.  The  word  he 
saw  was  made  to  do  double  duty ;  under  a 
seeming  unity  there  lurked  a  real  dualism,  from 
which  manifold  confusions  might   follow.     He 


*  Fin.  ii.  4  ;  and  for  «  qualitas '  see  Acad.  i.  6. 
t  Me  verborum  vigilantissimus  appensor  ac  mensor, 
as  Augustine  happily  terms  him. 
1  Thus  the  monkish  line  : 

Invidiosus  ego,  non  invidus  esse  laboro. 


v.  Invidenfia,  Indolentia.  209 

therefore  devised  '  invidentia,'  to  express  the 
active  envy,  or  the  envying,  no  doubt  desiring 
that  'invidia'  should  be  restrained  to  the  passive, 
the  being  envied.  'Invidentia'  to  all  appearance 
supplied  a  real  want;  yet  Cicero  himself  did  not 
succeed  in  giving  it  currency  ;  does  not  seem 
himself  to  have  much  cared  to  employ  it  again.* 
We  see  by  this  example  that  not  every  word, 
which  even  an  expert  in  language  proposes,  finds 
acceptance  ;f  for,  as  Dryden,  treating  on  this 
subject,  has  well  observed, '  It  is  one  thing  to  draw 
a  bill,  and  another  to  have  it  accepted.'  Pro- 
vided some  words  live,  he  must  be  content  that 
others  should  fall  to  the  ground  and  die.  Nor 
is  this  the  only  unsuccessful  candidate  for  ad- 
mission into  the  language  which  Cicero  put 
forward.  His  'indolentia,'  which  I  mentioned 
just  now,  hardly  passed  beyond  himself;  J  his 


*  Tusc.  iii.  9  ;  iv.  8  ;  cf.  Doderlein,  Synon.  vol.  iii. 
p.  68. 

t  Quintilian's  advice,  based  on  this  fact,  is  good  (i.  6. 
42)  :  Etiamsi  potest  nihil  peccare,  qui  utitur  iis  verbis 
quae  summi  auctores  tradiderunt,  multum  tamen  refert 
non  solum  quid  dixerint,  sed  etiam  quid  persnaseri?it. 
He  himself,  as  he  informs  us,  invented  'vocalitas'  to 
correspond  with  the  Greek  ei(f><i>i>ia  {Instit.  i.  5.  24),  but 
1  am  not  conscious  that  he  found  any  imitators  here. 

X  Thus  Seneca  a  little  later  is  unaware,  or  has  for- 
gotten, that  Cicero  made  any  such  suggestion.  Taking 
no  notice  of  it,  he  proposes  '  impatientia '  as  an  adequate 
rendering  of  dnddeia.  There  clung  this  inconvenience  to 
the  word,  as  he  himself  allowed,  that  it  was  already  used 

P 


2  i  o        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lsct. 

'  vitiositas,' *  '  indigentia,'  f  and  '  mulicrositas,'  \ 
not  at  all.  '  Beatitas '  too  and  '  bcatitudo,'  §  both 
of  his  coining,  yet,  as  he  owns  himself,  with 
something  strange  and  unattractive  about  them, 
found  almost  no  acceptance  at  all  in  the  classical 
literature  of  Rome  :  '  bcatitudo,'  indeed,  obtained 
a  home,  as  it  deserved  to  do,  in  the  Christian 
Church,  but  'beatitas'  none.  Coleridge's  'esem- 
plastic,'  by  which  he  was  fain  to  express  the 
all-atoning  or  unifying  power  of  the  imagina- 
tion, has  not  pleased  others  at  all  in  the  mea- 
sure in  which  it  pleased  himself ;  while  the 
words  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  of  such  Latinists  as  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  and  Henry  More,  born  only  to 
die,  are  multitudinous  as  the  fallen  leaves  of 
autumn. ]|  Still  even  the  word  which  fails  is 
often  an  honourable  testimony  to  the  scholar- 
ship, or  the  exactness  of  thought,  or  the  imagi- 
nation of  its  author;  and  Ben  Jonson  is  over- 
hard  on  *  neologists,'  if  I  may  bring  this  term 
back  to  its  earlier  meaning,  when  he  says :  '  A 
man  coins  not  a  new  word  without  some  peril, 
and  less  fruit  ;  for  if  it  happen  to  be  received, 
the  praise  is  but  moderate  ;  if  refused,  the  scorn 
is  assured.' 1f 

in  exactly  the  opposite  sense  {Ep.  9).     Elsewhere  he 
claims  to  be  the  inventor  of  '  essentia '  {Ep.  38;. 
*   Tusc.  iv.  15.  t  Ibid.  iv.  9.  21. 

I  Ibid.  iv.  u.  §  Nat.  Deor.  i.  34. 

||  See  my  English  Past  and  Present %  13th  edit.  p.  113. 
^1   Therefore  the  maxim  : 

Moribus  antiquis,  praesentibus  utere  verbis. 


».  Words  which  say  much.  211 

I  spoke  just  now  of  comprehensive  words, 
which  should  singly  say  what  hitherto  it  had 
taken  many  words  to  say,  in  which  a  higher 
term  has  been  reached  than  before  had  been 
attained.  The  value  of  these  is  incalculable. 
By  the  cutting  short  of  lengthy  explanations 
and  tedious  circuits  of  language,  they  facilitate 
mental  processes,  such  as  would  often  have  been 
nearly  or  quite  impossible  without  them;  and  such 
as  have  invented  or  put  these  into  circulation, 
are  benefactors  of  a  high  order  to  knowledge. 
In  the  ordinary  traffic  of  life,  unless  our  dealings 
are  on  the  smallest  scale,  we  willingly  have  about 
us  our  money  in  the  shape  rather  of  silver  than 
of  copper ;  and  if  our  transactions  are  at  all 
extensive,  rather  in  gold  than  in  silver :  while, 
if  we  were  setting  forth  upon  a  long  and  costly 
journey,  we  should  be  best  pleased  to  turn  even 
our  gold  coin  itself  into  bills  of  exchange  or 
circular  notes  ;  in  fact,  into  the  highest  deno- 
mination of  money  which  it  was  capable  of 
assuming.  How  many  words  with  which  we 
are  now  perfectly  familiar  are  for  us  what  the 
circular  note  or  bill  of  exchange  is  for  the 
traveller  or  the  merchant  As  innumerable 
pence,  a  multitude  of  shillings,  not  a  few  pounds 
are  gathered  up  and  represented  by  one  of  these, 
so  have  we  in  some  single  word  the  quintessence 
and  final  result  of  an  infinite  number  of  anterior 
mental  processes,  ascending  one  above  the  other, 
until  all  have  been  at  length  summed  up  for  us 

p  2 


212        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 


in  that  single  word.  This  last  may  be  com- 
pared to  nothing  so  fitly  as  to  some  mighty 
river,  which  does  not  bring  its  flood  of  waters  to 
the  sea,  till  many  rills  have  been  swallowed  up 
in  brooks,  and  brooks  in  streams,  and  streams  in 
tributary  rivers,  each  of  these  affluents  having 
lost  its  separate  name  and  existence  in  that 
which  at  last  represents  and  contains  them  all. 

Science  is  an  immense  gainer  by  words  which 
thus  say  singly,  what  whole  sentences  might 
with  difficulty  have  succeeded  in  saying.  Thus 
'  isothermal '  is  quite  a  modern  invention  ;  but 
how  much  is  summed  up  by  the  word  ;  what  a 
long  story  is  saved,  as  often  as  we  speak  of 
'isothermal'  lines.  Physiologists  have  given  the 
name  of  'atavism  '  to  the  emerging  again  of  a 
face  in  a  family  after  its  disappearance  during 
two  or  three  generations.  What  would  have 
else  needed  a  sentence  is  here  accomplished  by 
a  word.  Francis  Bacon  somewhere  describes  a 
certain  candidate  for  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter  as 
being  '  papable.'  There  met,  that  is,  in  him  all 
the  conditions,  and  they  were  many,  which  would 
admit  the  choice  of  the  Conclave  falling  upon 
him.  When  Bacon  wrote,  one  to  be  '  papable ' 
must  have  been  born  in  lawful  wedlock  ;  must 
have  no  children  nor  grandchildren  living;  must 
not  have  a  kinsman  already  in  the  Conclave ;  must 
be  already  a  Cardinal ;  all  which  facts  this  single 
word  sums  up.  When  Aristotle,  in  the  opening 
sentences  of  his  Rhetoric,  declares  that  rhetoric 


»•  AntistrophiCy  Circle.  213 

and  logic  are  '  antistrophic,'  what  a  wonderful 
insight  into  both,  and  above  all  into  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another,  does  the  word  impart  to 
those  who  have  any  such  special  training  as 
enables  them  to  take  in  all  which  hereby  he 
intends.  Or  take  a  word  so  familiar  as  'circle,' 
and  imagine  how  it  would  fare  with  us,  if,  as 
often  as  in  some  long  and  difficult  mathematical 
problem  we  needed  to  refer  to  this  figure,  we 
were  obliged  to  introduce  its  entire  definition, 
no  single  word  representing  it ;  and  not  this 
only,  but  the  definition  of  each  term  employed 
in  the  definition  ; — how  wellnigh  impossible  it 
would  prove  to  carry  the  whole  process  in  the 
mind,  or  to  take  oversight  of  all  its  steps. 
Imagine  a  few  more  words  struck  out  of  the 
vocabulary  of  the  mathematician,  and  if  all 
activity  and  advance  in  his  proper  domain  was 
not  altogether  arrested,  yet  would  it  be  as  effect- 
ually restrained  and  hampered  as  commercial 
intercourse  would  be,  if  in  all  its  transactions 
iron  or  copper  were  the  sole  medium  of  ex- 
change. Wherever  any  science  is  progressive, 
there  will  be  progress  in  its  nomenclature  as 
well.  Words  will  keep  pace  with  things,  and 
with  more  or  less  felicity  resuming  in  themselves 
the  labours  of  the  past,  will  at  once  assist  and 
abridge  the  labours  of  the  future  ;  like  tools 
which,  themselves  the  result  of  the  finest  me- 
chanical skill,  do  at  the  same  time  render  other 
and  further  triumphs  of  art  possible,  oftentimes 


2 1 4        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

such  as  would  prove  quite  unattainable  without 
them.* 

It  is  not  merely  the  widening  of  men's  in- 
tellectual horizon,  which,  bringing  new  thoughts 
within  the  range  of  their  vision,  compels  the 
origination  of  corresponding  words ;  but  as  often 
as  regions  of  this  outward  world  hitherto  closed 
are  laid  open,  the  novel  objects  of  interest  which 
these  contain  will  demand  to  find  their  names, 
and  not  merely  to  be  catalogued  in  the  nomen- 
clature of  science,  but,  so  far  as  they  present 
themselves  to  the  popular  eye,  will  require  to  be 
popularly  named.  When  a  new  thing,  a  plant, 
or  fruit,  or  animal,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be, 
is  imported  from  some  foreign  land,  or  so  comes 
within  the  sphere  of  knowledge  that  it  needs  to 
be  thus  named,  there  are  various  ways  by  which 
this  may  be  done.  The  first  and  commonest 
way  is  to  import  the  name  and  the  thing  to- 
gether, incorporating  the  former,  unchanged,  or 
with  slight  modification,  into  the  language. 
Thus  we  did  with  the  potato,  which  is  only 
another  form  of  '  batata,'  in  which  shape  the 
original  Indian  word  appears  in  our  earlier 
voyagers.  But  this  is  not  the  only  way  of 
naming ;  and  the  example  on  which  I  have  just 
lighted  affords  good  illustration  of  various  other 
methods  which  may  be  adopted.  Thus  a  name 
belonging  to  something  else,  which  the  new 
object  nearly  resembles,  may  be  transferred  to 


•  See  Mill,  System  of  Logic,  iv.  6,  3. 


w. 


Kartoffel,  Pineapple.  21 


it,  and  the  confusion  arising  from  calling  dif- 
ferent things  by  the  same  name  disregarded. 
It  was  thus  in  German,  '  kartoffel '  being  only  a 
corruption,  which  found  place  in  the  last  century, 
of 'tartuffel.'from  the  Italian  'tartuffolo'(Florio), 
properly  the  name  of  the  truffle  ;  but  which  not 
the  less  was  transferred  to  the  potato,  on  the 
ground  of  the  many  resemblances  between  them.* 
Or  again  this  same  transfer  may  take  place,  but 
with  some  qualifying  or  distinguishing  addition. 
Thus  in  Italy  also  men  called  the  potato '  tartufo,' 
but  added  '  bianco,'  the  white  truffle  ;  a  name 
now  giving  way  to  '  patata.'  Thus  was  it,  too, 
with  the  French  ;  who  called  it  apple,  but 
'  apple  of  the  earth ' ;  even  as  in  many  of  the 
provincial  dialects  of  Germany  it  bears  the 
name  of  '  erdapfel '  or  earth-apple  to  this  day. 

It  will  sometimes  happen  that  a  language, 
having  thus  to  provide  a  new  name  for  a  new 
thing,  will  seem  for  a  season  not  to  have  made  up 
its  mind  by  which  of  these  methods  it  shall  do  it. 
Two  names  will  exist  side  by  side,  and  only  after 
a  time  will  one  gain  the  upper  hand  of  the  other. 
Thus  when  the  pineapple  was  introduced  into 
England,  it  brought  with  it  the  name  of  '  ananas,' 
erroneously  '  anana,'  under  which  last  form  it  is 
celebrated  by  Thomson  in  his  Seasons. ,f  This 
name  has  been   nearly  or  quite  superseded  by 

*  [See  Kluge,  Etym.  Diet.  (s.  v.  Kartoffel).'] 
+  [The  word  ananas  is  from  a  native  Peruvian  name 
rnnas.     The  pineapple  was  first  seen  by  Europeans   in 
Peru  ;  see  the  New  English  Dictionary  (s.  v.).] 


2  i  6       On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.         lect. 

1  pineapple,'  manifestly  suggested  by  the  likeness 
of  the  new  fruit  to  the  cone  of  the  pine.  It  is 
not  a  very  happy  formation  ;  for  it  is  not  likeness, 
but  identity,  which  •  pineapple '  suggests,  and  it 
gives  some  excuse  to  an  error,  which  up  to  a  very 
late  day  ran  through  all  German-English  and 
French-English  dictionaries  ;  I  know  not  whether 
even  now  it  has  disappeared.  In  all  of  these 
' pineapple'  is  rendered  as  though  it  signified  not 
the  anana,  but  this  cone  of  the  pine  ;  and  not 
very  long  ago,  the  Journal  des  DSats  made 
some  uncomplimentary  observations  on  the  vo- 
racity of  the  English,  who  could  wind  up  a  Lord 
Mayor's  banquet  with  fir-cones  for  dessert. 

Sometimes  the  name  adopted  will  be  one 
drawn  from  an  intermediate  language,  through 
which  we  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
object  requiring  to  be  named.  'Alligator'  is 
an  example  of  this.  When  that  ugly  crocodile 
of  the  New  World  was  first  seen  by  the  Spanish 
discoverers,  they  called  it,  with  a  true  insight 
into  its  species,  '  el  lagarto,'  the  lizard,  as  being 
the  largest  of  that  lizard  species  to  which  it 
belonged,  or  sometimes '  el  lagarto  de  las  Indias,' 
the  Indian  lizard.  In  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  Dis- 
covery of  Guiana  the  word  still  retains  its  Spanish 
form.  Sailing  up  the  Orinoco,  '  we  saw  in  it,' 
he  says,  '  divers  sorts  of  strange  fishes  of  mar- 
vellous bigness,  but  for  lagartos  it  exceeded  ; 
for  there  were  thousands  of  these  ugly  serpents, 
and  the  people  call  it,  for  the  abundance  of 
them,  the  river  of  lagartos,  in  their  language.' 


i.  Alligator.  2 1 7 

We  can  explain  the  shape  which  with  us  the 
word  gradually  assumed,  by  supposing  that 
English  sailors  who  brought  it  home,  and  had 
continually  heard,  but  may  have  never  seen  it 
written,  blended,  as  in  similar  instances  has 
often  happened,  the  Spanish  article  '  el '  with 
the  name.  In  Ben  Jonson's  '  alligarta,'  we  note 
the  word  in  process  of  transformation.* 

Less  honourable  causes  than  some  which  I 


•  *  Alcoran  '  supplies  another  example  of  this  curious 
annexation  of  the  article.  Examples  of  a  like  absorption 
or  incorporation  of  it  are  to  be  found  in  many  languages  ; 
in  our  own,  when  we  write  '  a  newt,'  and  not  an  ewt,  or 
when  our  fathers  wrote  '  a  nydiot '  (Sir  T.  More),  and  not 
an  idiot  ;  but  they  are  still  more  numerous  in  French. 
Thus  'lierre,'  ivy,  was  written  by  Ronsard,  '  l'hierre,' 
which  is  correct,  being  the  Latin  'hedera.'  'Lingot'is 
our  'ingot,'  but  with  fusion  of  the  article;  in'larigot' 
and  'loriot'  the  word  and  the  article  have  in  the  same 
manner  grown  together.  In  old  French  it  was  Tende- 
main,'  or,  le  jour  en  demain  :  'le  lendemain,'  as  now 
written,  is  a  barbarous  excess  of  expression.  '  La  Pouille,' 
a  name  given  to  the  southern  extremity  of  Italy,  and  in 
which  we  recognize  '  Apulia,'  is  another  variety  of  error, 
but  moving  in  the  same  sphere  (Genin,  Recreations 
Philologiques,  vo\.  i.  pp.  102-105);  of  the  same  variety 
is  'La  Natolie,'  which  was  written  'L'Anatolie'  once. 
An  Irish  scholar  has  observed  that  in  modern  Irish  'an' 
(  =  'the')  is  frequently  thus  absorbed  in  the  names  of 
places,  as  in  'Nenagh'  (the  fair),  '  Naul '  (the  cliff), 
'Newry'  (the  yew-tree);  while  sometimes  an  error 
exactly  the  reverse  of  this  is  committed,  and  a  letter 
supposed  to  be  the  article,  but  in  fact  a  part  of  the  word, 
dropt  :  thus  'Oughaval,'  instead  of  'Noughhaval'  or 
New  Habitation.     [See  Joyce,  Irish  Local  Names.] 


2 1 8        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

have  mentioned,  give  birth  to  new  words  ;  which 
will  sometimes  reflect  back  a  very  fearful  lig'^t 
on  the  moral  condition  of  that  epoch  in  which 
first  they  saw  the  light.  Of  the  Roman  emperor, 
Tiberius,  one  of  those  '  inventors  of  evil  things,' 
of  whom  St.  Paul  speaks  (Rom.  i.  30),  Tacitus  in- 
forms us  that  under  his  hateful  dominion  words, 
unknown  before,  emerged  in  the  Latin  tongue, 
for  the  setting  out  of  wickednesses,  happily 
also  previously  unknown,  which  he  had  invented. 
It  was  the  same  frightful  time  which  gave  birth 
to  '  delator,'  alike  to  the  thing  and  to  the  word. 

The  atrocious  attempt  of  Lewis  XIV.  to 
convert  the  Protestants  in  his  dominions  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith  by  quartering  dragoons 
upon  them,  with  license  to  misuse  to  the  utter- 
most those  who  refused  to  conform,  this  '  booted 
mission  '  (mission  bottle),  as  it  was  facetiously 
called  at  the  time,  has  bequeathed  '  dragonnade ' 
to  the  French  language.  '  Refugee  '  had  at  the 
same  time  its  rise,  and  owed  it  to  the  same  event. 
They  were  called  '  reTugies '  or  '  refugees '  who 
took  refuge  in  some  land  less  inhospitable  than 
their  own,  so  as  to  escape  the  tender  mercies  of 
these  missionaries.  '  Convertisseur '  belongs  to 
the  same  period.  The  spiritual  factor  was  so 
named  who  undertook  to  convert  the  Protestants 
on  a  large  scale,  receiving  so  much  a  head  for 
the  converts  whom  he  made. 

Our  present  use  of  'roud'  throws  light  on 
another  curious  and  shameful  page  of  French 


».  Rout.  2 1 9 

history  The  *  roueV  by  which  word  now  is  meant 
a  man  of  profligate  character  and  conduct,  is 
properly  and  primarily  one  broken  on  the  wheel. 
Its  present  and  secondary  meaning  it  derived 
from  that  Duke  of  Orleans  who  was  Regent  of 
France  after  the  death  of  Lewis  XIV.  It  was 
his  miserable  ambition  to  gather  round  him 
companions  worse,  if  possible,  and  wickeder 
than  himself.  These,  as  the  Duke  of  St.  Simon 
assures  us,  he  was  wont  to  call  his  '  roues '  ; 
every  one  of  them  abundantly  deserving  to  be 
broken  on  the  wheel, — which  was  the  punish- 
ment then  reserved  in  France  for  the  worst  male- 
factors.* When  we  have  learned  the  pedigree 
of  the  word,  the  man  and  the  age  rise  up  before 
us,  glorying  in  their  shame,  and  not  caring  to  pay 
to  virtue  even  that  hypocritical  homage  which 
vice  finds  it  sometimes  convenient  to  render. 

The  great  French  Revolution  made,  as 
might  be  expected,  characteristic  contributions 
to  the  French  language.  It  gives  us  some  in- 
sight into  its  ugliest  side  to  know  that,  among 
other  words,  it  produced  the  following :  *  guil- 
lotine,' '  incivisme,'  '  lanterner,'  '  noyade,'  '  sans- 
culotte,' '  terrorisme.'  Still  later,  the  French 
conquests  in  North  Africa,  and  the  pitiless 
severities  with  which  every  attempt  at  resistance 


*  The  '  roues '  themselves  declared  that  the  word 
expressed  rather  their  readiness  to  give  any  proof  of  their 
affection,  even  to  the  being  broken  upon  the  wheel,  to 
their  protector  and  friend. 


2  20        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

on  the  part  of  the  free  tribes  of  the  interior  was 
put  down  and  punished,  have  left  their  mark  on 
it  as  well ;  '  razzia,'  which  is  properly  an  Arabic 
word,  having  been  added  to  it,  to  express  the 
swift  and  sudden  sweeping  away  of  a  tribe,  with 
its  herds,  its  crops,  and  all  that  belongs  to  it. 
The  Communist  insurrection  of  1871  bequeathed 
one  contribution  almost  as  hideous  as  itself, 
namely  •  p^troleuse,'  to  the  language.  It  is 
quite  recently  that  we  have  made  any  acquaint- 
ance with  'recidivist' — one,  that  is,  who  falls 
back  once  more  on  criminal  courses. 

But  it  would  ill  become  us  to  look  only 
abroad  for  examples  in  this  kind,  when  perhaps 
an  equal  abundance  might  be  found  much  nearer 
home.  Words  of  our  own  keep  record  of  passages 
in  our  history  in  which  we  have  little  reason  to 
glory.  Thus  '  mob  '  and  '  sham  '  had  their  birth 
in  that  most  disgraceful  period  of  English  his- 
tory, the  interval  between  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution.  '  I  may  note,'  says  one  writing 
towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II., 
'  that  the  rabble  first  changed  their  title,  and 
were  called  "  the  mob "  in  the  assemblies  of 
this  [The  Green  Ribbon]  Club.  It  was  their 
beast  of  burden,  and  called  first  "  mobile 
vulgus,"  but  fell  naturally  into  the  contraction  of 
one  syllable,  and  ever  since  is  become  proper 
English.'*     At  a  much    later  date  a  writer  in 


*  North,  Examen,  p.  574  ;  for  the  origin  of  'sham' 
see  p.   231.     Compare  Swift  in   The  Taller^  No.  cexxx. 


».  Mob,  Burke,  Ratten,  Boycott.       221 

The  Spectator  speaks  of  'mob'  as  still  only 
struggling  into  existence.  '  I  dare  not  answer,' 
he  says,  '  that  mob,  rap,  pos,  incog.,  and  the  like, 
will  not  in  time  be  looked  at  as  part  of  our  tongue.' 
In  regard  of '  mob,'  the  mobile  multitude,  swayed 
hither  and  thither  by  each  gust  of  passion  or 
caprice,  this,  which  The  Spectator  hardly  ex- 
pected, while  he  confessed  it  possible,  has  actu- 
ally come  to  pass.  '  It  is  one  of  the  many  words 
formerly  slang,  which  are  now  used  by  our  best 
writers,  and  received,  like  pardoned  outlaws, 
into  the  body  of  respectable  citizens.'  Again, 
though  the  murdering  of  poor  helpless  lodgers, 
afterwards  to  sell  their  bodies  for  dissection,  can 
only  be  regarded  as  the  monstrous  wickedness 
of  one  or  two,  yet  the  verb  '  to  burke,'  drawn 
from  the  name  of  a  wretch  who  long  pursued 
this  hideous  traffic,  will  be  evidence  in  all  after 
times,  unless  indeed  its  origin  should  be  for- 
gotten, to  how  strange  a  crime  this  age  of  ours 
could  give  birth.  Nor  less  must  it  be  acknow- 
ledged that  •  to  ratten '  is  no  pleasant  acquisi- 
tion which  the  language  within  the  last  few 
years  has  made  ;  and  as  little  '  to  boycott,'  which 
is  of  still  later  birth.* 

We  must  not  count  as  new  words  properly  so 


'  I  have  done  the  utmost,'  he  there  says,  '  for  some  years 
past  to  stop  the  progress  of  "mob"  and  "banter"  ;  but 
have  been  plainly  borne  down  by  numbers,  and  betrayed 
by  those  who  promised  to  assist  me.' 

*  [This  word  has  found  its  way  into  most  European 
languages,  see  the  New  English  Dictionary  (s.  v.)] 


222        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lbct. 

called,  although  they  may  delay  us  for  a  minute, 
those  comic  words,  most  often  comic  combina- 
tions formed  at  will,  wherein,  as  plays  and  dis- 
plays of  power,  writers  ancient  and  modern  have 
delighted.  These  for  the  most  part  are  meant  to 
do  service  for  the  moment,  and,  this  done,  to 
pass  into  oblivion  ;  the  inventors  of  them  them- 
selves having  no  intention  of  fastening  them  per- 
manently on  the  language.  Thus  Aristophanes 
coined  peWovciaaw,  to  loiter  like  Nicias,  with 
allusion  to  the  delays  by  whose  aid  this  prudent 
commander  sought  to  put  off  the  disastrous 
Sicilian  expedition,  with  other  words  not  a  few, 
familiar  to  every  scholar.  The  humour  will  some- 
times consist  in  their  enormous  length,*  some- 
times in  their  mingled  observance  and  trans- 
gression of  the  laws  of  the  language,  as  in  the 
Bavawraros,  in  the  avroraros  of  the  Greek  comic 
poet,  the '  patruissimus  '  and '  oculissimus,'  comic 
superlatives  of  patruus  and  oculus, '  occisissimus  ' 
of  occisus  ;  '  dominissimus  '  of  dominus  ;  '  asinis- 
simo  '  (Italian)  of  asino  ;  or  in  superlative  piled 
on  superlative,  as  in  the  '  minimissimus '  and 
'pessimissimus '  of  Seneca,  the  'ottimissimo ' 
of  the  modern  Italian  ;  so  too  in  the  '  dosones,' 
'  dabones,'  which  in  Greek  and  in  medieval  Latin 
were  names  given  to  those  who  wrere  ever  pro- 


•  As  in  the  dfxcpnTTnXtponrjSrjcrta-TpaTos  of  Eupolis  ;  the 
crTr(pnay<>pau>\rKtfl(>\ti)(avojra>\i.s  of  Aristophanes.  There 
are  others  a  good  deal  longer  than  these. 


Comic  Words.  223 


mising,  ever  saying  '  I  will  give,'  but  never 
crowning  promise  with  performance.  Plautus, 
with  his  exuberant  wit,  and  exulting  in  his 
mastery  of  the  Latin  language,  is  rich  in  these, 
'  fustitudinus,' '  ferricrepinus  '  and  the  like  *  will 
put  together  four  or  five  lines  consisting  wholly 
of  comic  combinations  thrown  off  for  the  occa- 
sion.* Of  the  same  character  is  Chaucer's 
'  octogamy,'  or  eighth  marriage  ;  Butler's  '  cyn- 
arctomachy,'  or  battle  of  a  dog  and  bear ; 
Southey's  '  matriarch,'  for  by  this  name  he  calls 
the  wife  of  the  Patriarch  Job  ;  but  Southey's  fun 
in  this  line  of  things  is  commonly  poor  enough  ; 
his  want  of  finer  scholarship  making  itself  felt 
here.  What  humour  for  example  can  any  one 
find  in  '  philofelist'  or  lover  of  cats?  Fuller, 
when  he  used  '  to  avunculize,'  meaning  to  tread 
in  the  footsteps  of  one's  uncle,  scarcely  proposed 
it  as  a  lasting  addition  to  the  language ;  as 
little  did  Pope  intend  more  than  a  very  brief 
existence  for  •  vaticide,'  or  Cowper  for  '  extra- 
foraneous,'  or  Carlyle  for  '  gigmanity,'  for  '  tol- 
patchery,'  or  the  like. 

Such  are  some  of  the  sources  of  increase  in 
the  wealth  of  a  language  ;  some  of  the  quarters 
from  which  its  vocabulary  is  augmented.  There 
have  been,  from  time  to  time,  those  who  have 
so  little  understood  what  a  language  is,  and 
what  are  the  laws  which  it  obeys,  that  they  have 


•  Persa,  iv.  6,  20-23. 


224        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 


sought  by  arbitrary  decrees  of  their  own  to 
arrest  its  growth,  have  pronounced  that  it  has 
reached  the  limits  of  its  growth,  and  must 
not  henceforward  presume  to  develop  itself 
further.  Even  Bentley  with  all  his  vigorous 
insight  into  things  is  here  at  fault.  '  It  were  no 
difficult  contrivance,'  he  says,  '  if  the  public  had 
any  regard  to  it,  to  make  the  English  tongue  im- 
mutable, unless  hereafter  some  foreign  nation 
shall  invade  and  overrun  us.'  *  But  a  lancuafje 
has  a  life,  as  truly  as  a  man,  or  as  a  tree.  As 
a  man,  it  must  grow  to  its  full  stature ;  unless 
indeed  its  life  is  prematurely  abridged  by 
violence  from  without ;  even  as  it  is  also  sub- 
mitted to  his  conditions  of  decay.  As  a  forest 
tree,  it  will  defy  any  feeble  bands  which  should 
attempt  to  control  its  expansion,  so  long  as 
the  principle  of  growth  is  in  it ;  as  a  tree  too  it 
will  continually,  while  it  casts  off  some  leaves, 
be  putting  forth  others.  And  thus1  all  such 
attempts  to  arrest  have  utterly  failed,  even  when 
made  under  conditions  the  most  favourable  for 
success.  The  French  Academy,  numbering  all 
or  nearly  all  the  most  distinguished  writers  of 
France,  once  sought  to  exercise  such  a  domina- 
tion over  their  own  language,  and  might  have 
hoped  to  succeed,  if  success  had  been  possible  for 
any.  But  the  language  heeded  their  decrees  as 
little  as   the  advancing   tide   heeded    those   of 


•   Works ;  vol.  ii.  p.  13. 


».  Resistance  to  New  Words.         225 

Canute.  Could  they  hope  to  keep  out  of  men's 
speech,  or  even  out  of  their  books,  however  they 
excluded  from  their  own  Dictionary,  such  words 
as  '  blague,'  '  blaguer,'  '  blagueur,'  because,  being 
born  of  the  people,  they  had  the  people's  mark 
upon  them  ?  After  fruitless  resistance  for  a 
time,  they  have  in  cases  innumerable  been  com- 
pelled to  give  way — though  in  favour  of  the 
words  just  cited  they  have  not  yielded  yet — and 
in  each  successive  edition  of  their  Dictionary 
have  thrown  open  its  doors  to  words  which  had 
established  themselves  in  the  language,  and 
would  hold  their  ground  there,  altogether  indif- 
ferent whether  they  received  the  Academy's  seal 
of  allowance  or  not.* 

Littre\  the  French  scholar  who  single-handed 
has  given  to  the  world  a  far  better  Dictionary 
than  that  on  which  the  Academy  had  bestowed 
the  collective  labour  of  more  than  two  hundred 
years,  shows  a  much  juster  estimate  of  the  actual 
facts  of  language.     If  ever   there  was  a  word 


*  Nisard  {Curiosite's  de  P£tym.  Franq.  p.  195)  has  an 
article  on  these  words,  where  with  the  epigrammatic 
neatness  which  distinguishes  French  prose,  he  says,  Je 
regrette  que  l'Academie  repousse  de  son  Dictionnaire  les 
mots  blague,  blagueur,  laissant  gronder  a  sa  porte  ces 
fils  effirontes  du  peuple,  qui  finiront  par  l'enfoncer.  On 
this  futility  of  struggling  against  popular  usage  in  lan- 
guage Montaigne  has  said,  '  They  that  will  fight  custom 
with  grammar  are  fools';  and,  we  may  add,  not  less 
fools,  as  engaged  in  as  hopeless  a  conflict,  they  that  will 
fight  it  with  dictionary. 

Q 


226        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

born  in  the  streets,  and  bearing  about  it  tokens 
of  the  place  of  its  birth,  it  is  '  gamin  ' ;  moreover 
it  cannot  be  traced  farther  back  than  the  year 
1835  ;  when  first  it  appeared  in  a  book,  though 
it  may  have  lived  some  while  before  on  the  lips 
of  the  people.  All  this  did  not  hinder  his  find- 
ing room  for  it  in  the  pages  of  his  Dictionary. 
He  did  the  same  for  '  flaneur,'  and  for  '  rococo,' 
and  for  many  more,  bearing  similar  marks  of  a 
popular  origin.*  And  with  good  right ;  for  though 
fashions  may  descend  from  the  upper  classes  to 
the  lower,  words,  such  I  mean  as  constitute 
real  additions  to  the  wealth  of  a  language,  as- 
cend from  the  lower  to  the  higher  ;  and  of  these 
not  a  few,  let  fastidious  scholars  oppose  or 
ignore  them  for  a  while  as  they  may,  will  assert 
a  place  for  themselves  therein,  from  which  they 
will  not  be  driven  by  the  protests  of  all  the 
scholars  and  all  the  academicians  in  the  world. 
The  world  is  ever  moving,  and  language  has  no 
choice  but  to  move  with  it-t 


*  A  work  by  Darmesteter,  De  la  Creation  attuelle  de 
Mots  nouveaux  dans  la  Langue  Franqaise,  Paris,  1877, 
is  well  worth  consulting  here. 

f  One  has  well  said,  '  The  subject  of  language,  the 
instrument,  but  also  the  restraint,  of  thought,  is  endless. 
The  history  of  language,  the  mouth  speaking  from  the 
fulness  of  the  heart,  is  the  history  of  human  action,  faith, 
art,  policy,  government,  virtue,  and  crime.  When  society 
progresses,  the  language  of  the  people  necessarily  runs 
even  with  the  line  of  society.  You  cannot  unite  past  and 
present,  still  less  can  you  bring  back  the  past ;  moreover, 


v.  Late  Birth  of  New  Words.        227 

Those  who  make  attempts  to  close  the  door 
against  all  new  comers  are  strangely  forgetful 
of  the  steps  whereby  that  vocabulary  of  the 
language,  with  which  they  are  so  entirely 
satisfied  that  they  resent  every  endeavour  to 
enlarge  it,  had  itself  been  gotten  together — 
namely  by  that  very  process  which  they  are 
now  seeking  by  an  arbitrary  decree  to  arrest. 
We  so  take  for  granted  that  words  with  which 
we  have  been  always  familiar,  whose  right  to  a 
place  in  the  language  no  one  dreams  now  of 
challenging  or  disputing,  have  always  formed 
part  of  it,  that  it  is  oftentimes  a  surprise  to 
discover  of  how  very  late  introduction  many  of 
these  actually  are  ;  what  an  amount,  it  may  be, 
of  remonstrance  and  resistance  some  of  them 


the  law  of  progress  is  the  law  of  storms,  it  is  impossible 
to  inscribe  an  immutable  statute  of  language  on  the 
periphery  of  a  vortex,  whirling  as  it  advances.  Every 
political  development  induces  a  concurrent  alteration  or 
expansion  in  conversation  and  composition.  New  prin- 
ciples are  generated,  new  authorities  introduced  ;  new 
terms  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  or  concealing  the 
conduct  of  public  men  must  be  created :  new  responsi- 
bilities arise.  The  evolution  of  new  ideas  renders  the 
change  as  easy  as  it  is  irresistible,  being  a  natural  change 
indeed,  like  our  own  voice  under  varying  emotions  or  in 
different  periods  of  life  :  the  boy  cannot  speak  like  the 
baby,  nor  the  man  like  the  boy,  the  wooer  speaks  otherwise 
than  the  husband,  and  every  alteration  in  circumstances, 
fortune  or  misfortune,  health  or  sickness,  prosperity  or 
adversity,  produces  some  concsponding  change  of  speech 
or  inflection  of  tone.' 

Q  2 


228        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.       lkct. 

encountered  at  the  first.  To  take  two  or  three 
Latin  examples:  Cicero,  in  employing  'favor,' 
a  word  soon  after  used  by  everybody,  does  it 
with  an  apology,  evidently  feels  that  he  is  in- 
troducing a  questionable  novelty,  being  proba- 
bly first  applied  to  applause  in  the  theatre ; 
'  urbanus,'  too,  in  our  sense  of  urbane,  had  in  his 
time  only  just  come  up  ;  '  obsequium  '  he  believes 
Terence  to  have  been  the  first  to  employ.*  Soli- 
loquium  '  seems  to  us  so  natural,  indeed  so  neces- 
sary, a  word,  this  '  soliloquy,'  or  talking  of  a  man 
with  himself  alone,  something  which  would  so 
inevitably  demand  and  obtain  its  adequate  ex- 
pression, that  we  learn  with  surprise  that  no  one 
spoke  of  a  '  soliloquy '  before  Augustine ;  the 
word  having  been  coined,  as  he  distinctly  informs 
us,  by  himself.f 

Where  a  word  has  proved  an  unquestionable 
gain,  it  is  interesting  to  watch  it  as  it  first 
emerges,  timid,  and  doubtful  of  the  reception  it 
will  meet  with ;  and  the  interest  is  much  en- 
hanced if  it  has  thus  come  forth  on  some  me- 
morable occasion,  or  from  some  memorable  man. 
Both  these  interests  meet  in  the  word  'essay.' 
Were  we  asked  what  is  the  most  remarkable 
volume  of  essays  which  the  world  has  seen, 
few,  capable  of  replying,  would  fail  to  answer, 
Lord    Bacon's.     But   they   were   also   the   first 


*  On  the  new  words  in  classical  Latin,  see  Quintilian, 
Inst.  viii.  3.  30-37.  t  Solil.  2.  7. 


Essay,  Philosopher.  229 


collection  of  these,  which  bore  that  name ;  for 
we  gather  from  the  following  passage  in  the 
(intended)  dedication  of  the  volume  to  Prince 
Henry,  that  'essay  '  was  itself  a  recent  word  in 
the  language,  and,  in  the  use  to  which  he  put 
it,  perfectly  novel :  he  says — '  To  write  just 
treatises  requireth  leisure  in  the  writer,  and 
leisure  in  the  reader  ;  .  .  .  which  is  the  cause 
which  hath  made  me  choose  to  write  certain 
brief  notes  set  down  rather  significantly  than 
curiously,  which  I  have  called  Essays.  The 
word  is  late,  but  the  thing  is  ancient.'  From 
this  dedication  we  gather  that,  little  as  '  essays ' 
now  can  be  considered  a  word  of  modesty,  de- 
precating too  large  expectations  on  the  part  of 
the  reader,  it  had,  as  '  sketches '  perhaps  would 
have  now,  as  '  commentary '  had  in  the  Latin, 
that  intention  in  its  earliest  use.  In  this  depre- 
cation of  higher  pretensions  it  resembled  the 
'  philosopher  '  of  Pythagoras.  Others  had  styled 
themselves,  or  had  been  willing  to  be  styled, 
'  wise  men.'  '  Lover  of  wisdom,'  a  name  at  once 
so  modest  and  so  beautiful,  was  of  his  devising.* 
But  while  thus  some  words  surprise  us  that 
they  are  so  new,  others  surprise  us  that  they  are 
so  old.  Few,  I  should  imagine,  are  aware  that 
'  rationalist,'  and  this  in  a  theological,  and  not 
merely  a  philosophical  sense,  is  of  such  oarly 
date  as  it  is  ;  or  that  we  have  not  imported  quite 


•  Diogenes  Laertms,  Procem.  §  12. 


230        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words. 


in  these  later  times  both  the  name  and  the  thing 
from  Germany.  Yet  this  is  very  far  from  the 
case.  There  were  '  rationalists '  in  the  time  of 
the  Commonwealth  ;  and  these  challenging  the 
name  exactly  on  the  same  grounds  as  those 
who  in  later  times  have  claimed  it  for  their  own. 
Thus,  the  author  of  a  newsletter  from  London, 
of  date  October  14,  1646,  among  other  things 
mentions :  '  There  is  a  new  sect  sprung  up 
among  them  [the  Presbyterians  and  Indepen- 
dents], and  these  are  the  Rationalists,  and  what 
their  reason  dictates  them  in  Church  or  State 
stands  for  good,  until  they  be  convinced  with 
better  ; '  *  with  more  to  the  same  effect.  '  Chris- 
tology '  has  been  lately  characterized  as  a 
monstrous  importation  from  Germany.  I  am 
quite  of  the  remonstrant's  mind  that  English 
theology  does  not  need,  and  can  do  excellently 
well  without  it ;  yet  this  novelty  it  is  not ;  for 
in  the  Preface  to  the  works  of  that  illustrious 
Arminian  divine  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
Thomas  Jackson,  written  by  Benjamin  Oley,  his 
friend  and  pupil,  the  following  passage  occurs : 
1  The  reader  will  find  in  this  author  an  eminent 
excellence  in  that  part  of  divinity  which  I  make 
bold  to  call  Christology,  in  displaying  the  great 
mystery  of  godliness,  God  the  Son  manifested 
in  human  flesh.' f 

*  Clarendon    State    Papers,   vol.    ii.    p.    40   of   the 
Appendix. 

+  Preface  to  Dr.  Jackson's  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  xxvil     A 


w.  Naturalization  of  Words.         231 

In  their  power  of  taking  up  foreign  word3 
into  healthy  circulation  and  making  them  truly 
their  own,  languages  differ  much  from  one 
another,  and  the  same  language  from  itself  at 
different  periods  of  its  life.  There  are  languages 
of  which  the  appetite  and  digestive  power,  the 
assimilative  energy,  is  at  some  periods  almost 
unlimited.  Nothing  is  too  hard  for  them  ;  every- 
thing turns  to  good  with  them  ;  they  will  shape 
and  mould  to  their  own  uses  and  habits  almost 
any  material  offered  to  them.  This,  however, 
is  in  their  youth ;  as  age  advances,  the  assi- 
milative energy  diminishes.  Words  are  still 
adopted  ;  for  this  process  of  adoption  can  never 
wholly  cease ;  but  a  chemical  amalgamation 
of  the  new  with  the  old  does  not  any  longer 
find  place  ;  or  only  in  some  instances,  and  very 
partially  even  in  them.  The  new  comers  lie 
upon  the  surface  of  the  language  ;  their  sharp 
corners  are  not  worn  or  rounded  off;  they  re- 
main foreign  still  in  their  aspect  and  outline,  and, 
having  missed  their  opportunity  of  becoming 
otherwise,  will  remain  so  to  the  end.  Those  who 
adopt,  as  with  an  inward  misgiving  about  their 
own  gift  and  power  of  stamping  them  afresh, 
make  a  conscience  of  keeping  them  in  exactly 
the  same  form  in  which  they  have  received  them  ; 
instead  of  conforming  them  to  the  laws  of  that 


work  of  Fleming's,  published    in    1700,  bears  the  title, 

Christolosrv. 


Christology. 


2  2,2       On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

new  community  into  which  they  are  now  re- 
ceived. Nothing  will  illustrate  this  so  well  as  a 
comparison  of  different  words  of  the  same  family, 
which  have  at  different  periods  been  introduced 
into  our  language.  We  shall  find  that  those  of 
an  earlier  introduction  have  become  English 
through  and  through,  while  the  later  introduced, 
belonging  to  the  same  group,  have  been  very  far 
from  undergoing  the  same  transforming  process. 
Thus  '  bishop '  [A.S.  biscop\  a  word  as  old  as 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  England, 
though  derived  from  '  episcopus,'  is  thoroughly 
English;  while  'episcopal,'  which  has  sup- 
planted '  bishoply,'  is  only  a  Latin  word  in  an 
English  dress.  '  Alms,'  too,  is  thoroughly  English, 
and  English  which  has  descended  to  us  from 
far ;  the  very  shape  in  which  we  have  the  word, 
one  syllable  for  '  eleemosyna  '  of  six,  sufficiently 
testifying  this  ;  '  letters,'  as  Home  Tooke  ob- 
serves, '  like  soldiers,  being  apt  to  desert  and 
drop  off  in  a  long  march.'  The  seven-syllabled 
and  awkward  '  eleemosynary '  is  of  far  more 
recent  date.  Or  sometimes  this  comparison  is 
still  more  striking,  when  it  is  not  merely  words 
of  the  same  family,  but  the  very  same  word 
which  has  been  twice  adopted,  at  an  earlier 
period  and  a  later — the  earlier  form  will  be 
thoroughly  English,  as  '  palsy  '  ;  the  later  will  be 
only  a  Greek  or  Latin  word  spelt  with  Eng- 
lish letters,  as  '  paralysis.'  '  Dropsy,'  '  quinsy/ 
'  megrim,'  '  squirrel,'  '  rickets,'  '  surgeon,'  '  tansy,' 
'  dittany,'  '  daffodil,'  and  many  more  words  that 


Popular  Origin  of  Words.         233 


one  might  name,  have  nothing  of  strangers  or 
foreigners  about  them,  have  made  themselves 
quite  at  home  in  English.  So  entirely  is  their 
physiognomy  native,  that  it  would  be  difficult 
even  to  suspect  them  to  be  of  Greek  descent,  as 
they  all  are.  Nor  has  'kickshaws'  anything 
about  it  now  which  would  compel  us  at  once  to 
recognize  in  it  the  French  '  quelques  choses '  * — 
*  French  kickshose,'  as  with  allusion  to  the  quarter 
from  which  it  came,  and  while  the  memory  of 
that  was  yet  fresh  in  men's  minds,  it  was  often 
called  by  our  early  writers. 

A  very  notable  fact  about  new  words,  and  a 
very  signal  testimony  of  their  popular  origin,  of 
their  birth  from  the  bosom  of  the  people,  is  the 
difficulty  so  often  found  in  tracing  their  pedi- 
gree. When  the  causa  vocum  are  sought,  as 
they  very  fitly  are,  and  out  of  much  better  than 
mere  curiosity,  for  the  causes  rerum  are  very 
often  wrapt  up  in  them,  those  continually  elude 
our  research.  Nor  does  it  fare  thus  merely  with 
words  to  which  attention  was  called,  and  interest 
about  their  etymology  awakened,  only  after  they 
had  been  long  in  popular  use — for  that  such 
should  often  give  scope  to  idle  guesses,  should 
altogether  refuse  to  give  up  their  secret,  is 
nothing  strange — but  words  will  not  seldom  per- 

*  '  These  cooks  have  persuaded  us  their  coarse  fare 
is  the  best,  and  all  other  but  what  they  dress  to  be  mere 
quelques  choses,  made  dishes  of  no  nourishing '  (Whitlock, 
Zooio/ma,  p.  147). 


2 34        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lec-t. 

plex  and  baffle  the  inquirer  even  where  an  in- 
vestigation of  their  origin  has  been  undertaken 
almost  as  soon  as  they  have  come  into  existence. 
Their  rise  is  mysterious  ;  like  almost  all  acts  of 
becoming,  it  veils  itself  in  deepest  obscurity. 
They  emerge,  they  are  in  everybody's  mouth  ; 
but  when  it  is  inquired  from  whence  they  are, 
nobody  can  tell.  They  are  but  of  yesterday, 
and  yet  with  inexplicable  rapidity  they  have 
already  lost  all  traces  of  the  precise  circum- 
stances under  which  they  were  born. 

The  rapidity  with  which  this  comes  to  pass 
is  nowhere  more  striking  than  in  the  names  of 
political  or  religious  parties,  and  above  all  in 
names  of  slight  or  of  contempt.  Thus  Baxter 
tells  us  that  when  he  wrote  there  already  existed 
two  explanations  of  '  Roundhead,'  *  a  word  not 
nearly  so  old  as  himself.  How  much  has  been 
written  about  the  origin  of  the  German  '  ketzer  ' 
(  =  our  '  heretic'),  though  there  can  scarcely  be  a 
doubt  that  the  Cathari  make  their  presence  felt 
in  this  word.f  Hardly  less  has  been  disputed 
about  the  French '  cagot.'  %  Is '  Lollard,'  or '  Loller ' 


•  Narrative  of  my  Life  and  Titties,  p.  34  ;  '  The 
original  of  which  name  is  not  certainly  known.  Some 
say  it  was  because  the  Puritans  then  commonly  wore 
short  hair,  and  the  King's  party  long  hair  ;  some  say,  it 
was  because  the  Queen  at  Strafford's  trial  asked  who  that 
round-headed  man  was,  meaning  Mr.  Pym,  because  he 
spake  so  strongly.' 

t  [See  on  this  word  Kluge's  Etytn.  Diet.] 
X  [The  word  meant  in  old  times  'a  leper' ;  see  Cot- 
grave's  Dictionary,  also  Athenaum,  No.  2726.] 


*"•  Derivations  forgotten.  235 

as  we  read  it  in  Chaucer,  from  '  lollen,'  to  chaunt  ? 
that  is,  does  it  mean  the  chaunting  or  canting 
people  ?  or  had  the  Lollards  their  title  from  a 
principal  person  among  them  of  this  name,  who 
suffered  at  the  stake? — to  say  nothing  of  'lo- 
lium,'  found  by  some  in  the  name,  these  men 
being  as  tares  among  the  wholesome  wheat.* 
The  origin  of  '  Huguenot,'  as  applied  to  the 
French  Protestants,  was  already  a  matter  of 
doubt  and  discussion  in  the  lifetime  of  those 
who  first  bore  it.  A  distinguished  German 
scholar  has  lately  enumerated  fifteen  explana- 
tions which  have  been  offered  of  the  word.f 
[How  did  the  lay  sisters  in  the  Low  Countries, . 
the  '  Beguines,'  get  their  name  ?  Many  deriva- 
tions have  been  suggested,  but  the  most  prob- 
able account  is  that  given  in  Ducange,  that  the 
appellative  was  derived  from  'le  Begue,'  the 
Stammerer,  the  nickname  of  Lambert,  a  priest  of 
Liege  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  founder  of  the 
order.  (See  the  document  quoted  in  Ducange, 
and  the  '  New  English  Dictionary  '  (s.  v.).]  Were 
the  '  Waldenses  '  so  called  from  one  Waldus,  to 
whom   these  '  Poor   Men   of    Lyons,'   as   they 


*  Hahn,  Ketzer  im  Mittelalter,  voL  ii.  p.  534. 

t  Mahn,  Etymol.  Untersuch.  p.  92.  Littre,  who  has 
found  the  word  in  use  as  a  Christian  name  two  centuries 
before  the  Reformation,  has  no  doubt  that  here  is  the 
explanation  of  it.  At  any  rate  there  is  here  what  ex- 
plodes a  large  number  of  the  proposed  explanations,  as 
for  instance  that  Huguenot  is  another  and  popular  shape 
of '  Eidgenossen.' 


236       On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

were  at  first  called,  owed  their  origin  ?  *  As  little 
can  any  one  tell  us  with  any  certainty  why 
the  '  Paulicians  '  and  the '  Paterines  '  were  sever- 
ally named  as  they  are  ;  or,  to  go  much  further 
back,  why  the  '  Essenes'  were  so  callcd.f  From 
whence  had  Johannes  Scotus,  who  anticipated  so 
much  of  the  profoundest  thinking  of  later  times, 
his  title  of  '  Erigena,'  and  did  that  title  mean 
Irish-born,  or  what?:}:  'Prester  John'  was  a 
name  given  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  a  priest-king, 
real  or  imaginary,  of  wide  dominion  in  Central 
Asia.  But  whether  there  was  ever  actually  such 
a  person,  and  what  was  intended  by  his  name,  is 
all  involved  in  the  deepest  obscurity.  How  per- 
plexing are  many  of  the  Church's  most  familiar 
terms,  and  terms  the  oftenest  in  the  mouth  oi 
her  children  ;  thus  her '  Ember  '  days  ;  her  '  Col- 
lects ' ;  §  her  '  Breviary ' ;  her  '  Whitsunday ' : 
the  derivation  of  '  Mass '  itself  not  being  lifted 


*  [It  is  not  doubted  now  that  the  Waldenses  got  their 
'name  from  Peter  Waldez  or  Valdo,  a  native  of  Lyons  in 
the  twelfth  century.  Waldez  was  a  rich  merchant  who 
sold  his  goods  and  devoted  his  wealth  to  furthering 
translations  of  the  Bible,  and  to  the  support  of  a  set  of 
poor  preachers.  For  an  interesting  account  of  the  Wal- 
denses see  in  the  Guardian,  Aug.  18,  18S6,  a  learned 
review  by  W.  A.  B.  C.  of  Histoire  Litteraire  des  Vandois. 
par  E.  Montet] 

t  Lightfoot,  On  the  Colossians,  p.  144  sqq. 

%  [There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  Erigena  in  this 
case  means  '  Irish-born.'] 

§  Freeman,  Principles  of  Divine  Service,  vol.  i.  p.  145, 
and  the  New  English  Dictionary,  s.  v. 


v.  Derivations  lost  sight  of.  237 


above  all  question.*  As  little  can  any  one  in- 
form us  why  the  Roman  military  standard  on 
which  Constantine  inscribed  the  symbols  of  the 
Christian  faith  should  have  been  called '  Labarum.' 
And  yet  the  'inquiry  began  early.  A  father  of 
the  Greek  Church,  almost  a  contemporary  of 
Constantine,  can  do  no  better  than  suggest  that 
'  labarum  '  is  equivalent  to  'laborum,'  and  that  it 
was  so  called  because  in  that  victorious  standard 
was  the  end  of  labour  and  toil  (finis  laborum)  !  f 
The  '  ciborium  '  of  the  early  Church  is  an  equal 
perplexity  ;  %  and  '  chapel '  (capella)  not  less. 
All  later  investigations  have  failed  effectually  to 
dissipate  the  mystery  of  the  '  Sangraal.'  So  too, 
after  all  that  has  been  written  upon  it,  the  true 
etymology  of  '  mosaic  '  remains  a  question  still. 
And  not  in  Church  matters  only,  but  every- 
where,  we  meet  with  the  same  oblivion  resting 
on  the  origin  of  words.  The  Romans,  one  might 
beforehand   have   assumed,  must   have   known 

*  [Two  at  least  of  the  ecclesiastical  terms  above 
mentioned  are  no  longer  perplexing,  and  are  quite 
lifted  above  dispute:  ember  in  'Ember  Days'  repre- 
sents Anglo-Saxon  ymb-ryne,  literally  '  a  running  round, 
circuit,  revolution,  anniversary' ;  and  Whitsunday  means, 
simply  'White  Sunday,'  Anglo-Saxon  hwita  SunnanA 
dceg.] 

t  Mahn,  Etym.  Untersuch.  p.  65  ;  ci.  Kurtz,  Kirchcn- 
geschichte,  3rd  edit.  p.  115. 

\  The  word  is  first  met  in  Chrysostom,  who  calls 
the  silver  models  of  the  temple  at  Ephesus  (Acts  xix. 
24)  ixiKpa  Act/3<o>ia.  [A  primary  meaning  of  the  Greek 
K&apwv  was  the  cup-like  seed-vessel  of  the  Egyptian 
water-lily,  see  Diet,  of  Christian  Antiquities,  p.  65.] 


238       On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.       "jct. 

very  well  why  they  called  themselves  '  Quirites,' 
but  it  is  manifest  that  this  knowledge  was  not 
theirs.  Why  they  were  addressed  as  Patres 
Conscripti  is  a  matter  unsettled  still.  They 
could  have  given,  one  would  think,  an  expla- 
nation of  their  naming  an  outlying  conquered 
region  a  '  province.'  Unfortunately  they  offer 
half  a  dozen  explanations,  among  which  we  may 
make  our  choice.  '  German  '  and  '  Germany ' 
were  names  comparatively  recent  when  Tacitus 
wrote  ;  but  he  owns  that  he  has  nothing  trust- 
worthy to  say  of  their  history  ;  *  later  inquirers 
have  not  mended  the  matter,  f 

The  derivation  of  words  which  are  the  very 
key  to  the  understanding  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
is  often  itself  wrapt  in  obscurity.  On  !  fief ' 
and  '  feudal '  how  much  has  been  disputed.} 
I*  Morganatic '  marriages  are  recognized  by  the 
public  law  of  Germany,  but  why  called  '  morgan- 
atic '  is  unsettled  still.§  Gypsies  in  German  are 
1  zigeuner ' ;  but  when  this  is  resolved  into  '  zieh- 
gauner,'  or  roaming  thieves,  the  explanation  has 
about  as  much  scientific  value  as  the  not  less 
ingenious  explanation  of  '  Saturnus '  as  satur 
annis,  ||  of '  severitas '  as  saeva  Veritas  (Augustine) ; 


*  Germania,  2. 

t  Pott,  Etymol.  Forsch.  vol.  ii.  pt.  2,  pp.  860  872. 

%  Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  England^  vol.  i. 
p.  251. 

§  [There  is  no  mystery  about  this  word  ;  see  a  good 
account  of  the  term  in  Skeat's  Diet.  (s.  v.).] 

||  Cicero,  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  25. 


Hottentot,  Cannibal.  239 


of ' cadaver  '  as  composed  of  the  first  syllables  of 
caxo  data,  z^rmibus.*  Littre  has  evidently  little 
confidence  in  the  explanation  commonly  offered 
of  the  '  Salic  '  law,  namely,  that  it  was  the  law 
which  prevailed  on  the  banks  of  the  Saal.f 

And  the  modern  world  has  unsolved  riddles 
innumerable  of  like  kind.     Why  was  '  Canada  ' 
so  named  ?     And  whence  is  '  Yankee/  a  title 
little  more  than  a  century  old  ?  having  made  its 
first  appearance  in   a  book  printed  at  Boston, 
U.S.,  1765.     Is  'Hottentot'  an  African  word, 
or,  more  probably,  a  Dutch  or  Low  Frisian  ;  and 
which,  if  any,  of  the  current  explanations  of  it 
should  be  accepted  ?  $     Shall  we  allow  Hum- 
boldt's derivation  of  '  cannibal,'  and  find  '  Carib  ' 
in  it  ?  §     Whence  did  the  «  Chouans,'  the  insur- 
gent royalists  of  Brittany,  obtain  their   title  ? 
When  did  California  obtain  its  name,  and  why  ? 
Questions  such  as  these,  to  which  we  can  give 
no  answer  or  a  very  doubtful  one,  might  be 
multiplied  without  end.     Littre  somewhere  in 
his  great  Dictionary  expresses   the    misgiving 
with  which  what  he  calls  '  anecdotal  etymology' 
fills  him  ;  while  yet  it  is  to  this  that  we  are  con- 
tinually tempted  here  to  have  recourse. 

*  D wight,  Modern  Philology,  1st  series,  p.  288. 

t  For  a  full  and  learned  treatment  of  the  various  deri- 
vations of  '  Mephistopheles '  which  have  been  proposed, 
and  for  the  first  appearance  of  the  name  in  books,  see 
Ward's  Marlowe's  Doctor  Faustus,  p.  117. 

X  See  Transactions  of  the  Philological  Society,  1866, 
pp.  6-25.  §  See  the  New  English  Dictionary,  s.  v. 


240       On  the  Rise  of  New  Wo7'ds.        lect. 

But  consider  now  one  or  two  words  which 
have  not  lost  the  secret  of  their  origin,  and  note 
how  easily  they  might  have  done  this,  and  having 
once  lost,  how  unlikely  it  is  that  any  searching 
would  have  recovered  it.  The  traveller  Burton 
tells  us  that  the  coarse  cloth  which  is  the  medium 
of  exchange,  in  fact  the  money  of  Eastern  Africa, 
is  called  '  merkani.'  The  word  is  a  native  cor- 
ruption of  '  American,'  the  cloth  being  manu- 
factured in  America  and  sold  under  this  name. 
But  suppose  a  change  should  take  place  in  the 
country  from  which  this  cloth  was  brought,  men 
little  by  little  forgetting  that  it  ever  had  been 
imported  from  America,  who  then  would  divine 
the  secret  of  the  word  ?  So  too,  if  the  tradition 
of  the  derivation  of  '  paraffin  '  were  once  let  go 
and  lost,  it  would,  I  imagine,  scarcely  be  re- 
covered. Mere  ingenuity  would  scarcely  divine 
the  fact  that  a  certain  oil  was  so  named  because 
'  parum  affinis,'  having  little  affinity  which  chem- 
istry could  detect,  with  any  other  substance. 
So,  too,  it  is  not  very  probable  that  the  derivation 
of  '  licorice,'  once  lost,  would  again  be  recovered. 
It  would  exist,  at  the  best,  but  as  one  guess 
among  many.  There  can  be  no  difficulty  about 
it  when  we  find  it  spelt,  as  we  do  in  Fuller, 
1  glycyrize  or  liquoris.' 

Those  which  I  cite  are  but  a  handful  of  ex- 
amples of  the  way  in  which  words  forget,  or 
under  predisposing  conditions  might  forget,  the 
circumstances  of  their  birth.     Now  if  we  could 


*.  Words  have  a  Parentage.  241 

believe  in  any  merely  arbitrary  words,  standing 
in  connexion  with  nothing  but  the  mere  law- 
less caprice  of  some  inventor,  the  impossibility 
of  tracing  their  derivation  would  be  nothing 
strange.  Indeed  it  would  be  lost  labour  to  seek 
for  the  parentage  of  all  words,  when  many 
probably  had  none.  But  there  is  no  such  thing  ; 
there  is  no  word  which  is  not,  as  the  Spanish 
gentleman  loves  to  call  himself,  an  '  hidalgo,' 
or  son  of  something.*  All  are  embodiments, 
more  or  less  successful,  of  a  sensation,  a  thought, 
or  a  fact ;  or  if  of  more  fortuitous  birth,  still  they 
attach  themselves  somewhere  to  the  already 
subsisting  world  of  words  and  things/f  and  have 
their    point   of  contact  with  it  and  departure 


*  [The  Spanish  hi  jo  dalgo,  a  gentleman,  means  a  son 
of  wealth,  or  an  estate  ;  see  Stevens'  Diet.  (s.  v.)] 

t  J.  Grimm,  in  an  interesting  review  of  a  little  volume 
dealing  with  what  the  Spaniards  call  '  Germania'  with 
no  reference  to  Germany,  the  French  '  argot,'  and  we 
'  Thieves'  Language,'  finds  in  this  language  the  most 
decisive  evidence  of  this  fact  (Kleine  Schrift.  vol.  iv.  p. 
165)  :  Der  nothwendige  Zusammenhang  aller  Sprache 
mit  Ueberlieferung  zeigt  sich  auch  hier  ;  kaum  ein  Wort 
dieser  Gaunermundart  scheint  leer  erfunden,  und  Men- 
schen  eines  Gelichters,  das  sich  sonst  kein  Gewissen  aus 
Liigen  macht,  beschamen  manchen  Sprachphilosophen, 
der  von  Erdichtung  einer  allgemeinen  Sprache  getraumt 
hat.  Van  Helmont  indeed,  a  sort  of  modern  Paracelsus. 
is  said  to  have  invented  the  word  '  gasj_;  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  think  that  there  was  not  a  feeling  here  after  '  geest ' 
or  'geist,'  whether  he  was  conscious  of  this  or  not. 

R 


242         On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        «-kct. 

from  it,  not  always  discoverable,  as  we  see,  but 
yet  always  existing.*  And  thus,  when  a  word 
entirely  refuses  to  tell  us  anything  about  itself, 
it  must  be  regarded  as  a  riddle  which  no  one 
has  succeeded  in  solving,  a  lock  of  which  no  man 
has  found  the  key — but  still  a  riddle  which  has 
a  solution,  a  lock  for  which  there  is  a  key,  though 
now,  it  may  be,  irrecoverably  lost.  And  this 
difficulty — it  is  oftentimes  an  impossibility — of 
tracing  the  genealogy  even  of  words  of  a  very 
recent  formation,  is,  as  I  observed,  a  strong 
argument  for  the  birth  of  the  most  notable  of 
these  out  of  the  heart  and  from  the  lips  of  the 
people.  Had  they  first  appeared  in  books, 
something  in  the  context  would  most  probably 
explain  them.  Had  they  issued  from  the  schools 
of  the  learned,  these  would  not  have  failed  to 
leave  a  recognizable  stamp  and  mark  upon  them. 
There  is,  indeed,  another  way  in  which  ob 
scurity  may  rest  on  a  new  word,  or  a  word  em- 
ployed in  a  new  sense.     It  may  tell  the  story  of 


*  Some  will  remember  here  the  old  dispute — Greek 
I  was  tempted  to  call  it,  but  in  one  shape  or  another  it 
emerges  everywhere — whether  words  were  imposed  on 
things  Secret  or  (bvcrei,  by  arbitrary  arrangement  or  by 
nature.  We  may  boldly  say  with  Bacon,  Vestigia  certe 
rationis  verba  sunt,  and  decide  in  favour  of  nature.  If 
only  they  knew  their  own  history,  they  could  always 
explain,  and  in  most  cases  justify,  their  existence.  See 
some  excellent  remarks  on  this  subject  by  Renan,  De 
lOrigine  die  Langage,  pp.  146-149  ;  and  an  admirable 
article  on  'Slang'  in  the  Times,  Oct.  18,  1864. 


».  Apocryphal,  Tragedy.  243 

its  birth,  of  the  word  or  words  which  compose 
it,  may  so  bear  these  on  its  front,  that  there  can 
be  no  question  here,  while  yet  its  purpose  and 
intention  may  be  hopelessly  hidden  from  our 
eyes.  The  secret  once  lost,  is  not  again  to  be 
recovered.  Thus  no  one  has  called,  or  could  call, 
in  question  the  derivation  of  '  apocryphal,'  that 
it  means  '  hidden  away.'  When,  however,  we 
begin  to  inquire  why  certain  books  which  the 
Church  either  set  below  the  canonical  Scriptures, 
or  rejected  altogether,  were  called  '  apocryphal,' 
then  a  long  and  doubtful  discussion  commences. 
Was  it  because  their  origin  was  hidden  to  the 
early  Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  thus  reason- 
able suspicions  of  their  authenticity  entertained?  * 
Or  was  it  because  they  were  mysteriously  kept 
out  of  sight  and  hidden  by  the  heretical  sects 
which  boasted  themselves  in  their  exclusive 
possession  ?  Or  was  it  that  they  were  books 
not  laid  up  in  the  Church  chest,  but  hidden 
away  in  obscure  corners  ?  Or  were  they  books 
worthier  to  be  hidden  than  to  be  brought  forward 
and  read  to  the  faithful  ?  f — for  all  these  expla- 
nations have  been  offered,  and  none  with  such 
superiority  of  proof  on  its  side  as  to  have 
deprived   others  of  all   right  to  be  heard.     In 


*  Augustine  (De  Civ.  Dei,  xv.  23)  :  Apocrypha  nuncu- 
pantur  eo  quod  eorum  occulta  origo  non  claruit  Patribus. 
Cf.  Con.  Faust,  xi.  2. 

f"  [The  New  English  Dictionary  decides  in  favour  of 
the  first  explanation  of  the  word.] 

K  2 


244        On  the  Rise  of  New  Words.        lect. 

the  same  way  there  is  no  question  that '  tragedy ' 
is  the  song  of  the  goat ;  but  why  this,  whether 
because  a  goat  was  the  prize  for  the  best  per- 
formers of  that  song  in  which  the  germs  of  Greek 
tragedy  lay,  or  because  the  first  actors  were 
dressed  like  satyrs  in  goatskins,  is  a  question 
which  will  now  remain  unsettled  to  the  end.* 
You  know  what  '  leonine  '  verses  are  ;  or,  if  you 
do  not,  it  is  very  easy  to  explain.  They  are 
Latin  hexameters  into  which  an  internal  rhyme 
has  forced  its  way.  The  following,  for  example, 
are  all  '  leonine ' : 

Qui  pingit  florem  non  pingit  floris  odorem  : 

Si  quis  det  mannos,  ne  quaere  in  dentibus  annos. 

Una  avis  in  dextrd  melior  quam  quattuor  extra. 

The  word  has  plainly  to  do  with  ' leo '  in  some 
shape  or  other  ;  but  are  these  verses  leonine 
from  one  Leo  or  Leolinus,  who  first  composed 
them  ?  or  because,  as  the  lion  is  king  of  beasts, 
so  this,  in  monkish  estimation,  was  the  king  of 
metres  ?  or  from  some  other  cause  which  none 
have  so  much  as  guessed  at?  t  It  is  a  mystery 
which  none  has  solved.  That  frightful  system 
of  fagging  which  made  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  German  Universities  a  sort  of  hell  upon 
earth,  and  which  was  known  by  the  name  of 
'  pennalism,'  we  can  scarcely  disconnect  from 
'  penna '  ;  while   yet   this  does    not   help   us  to 

•  See  Bentley,  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  337. 

t  See  my  Sacred  Latin  Poetry,  3rd  edit  a.  32. 


*.  Sycophant,  Superstition.  245 

any  effectual  scattering  of  the  mystery  which 
rests  upon  the  term.*  The  connexion  of  '  dic- 
tator '  with  '  dicere,'  '  dictare,'  is  obvious  ;  not  so 
the  reason  why  the  '  dictator '  obtained  his  name. 
'Sycophant'  and  'superstition'  are  words,  one 
Greek  and  one  Latin,  of  the  same  character. 
No  one  doubts  of  what  elements  they  are  com- 
posed ;  and  yet  their  secret  has  been  so  lost,  that, 
except  as  a  more  or  less  plausible  guess,  it  can 
never  now  be  recovered.! 

But  I  must  conclude.  I  may  seem  in  this 
present  lecture  a  little  to  have  outrun  your 
needs,  and  to  have  sometimes  moved  in  a  sphere 
too  remote  from  that  in  which  your  future  work 
will  lie.  And  yet  it  is  in  truth  very  difficult 
to  affirm  of  any  words,  that  they  do  not  touch 
us,  do  not  in  some  way  bear  upon  our  studies, 
on  what  we  shall  hereafter  have  to  teach,  or 
shall  desire  to  learn  ;  that  there  are  any  con- 
quests which  language  makes  that  concern  only 
a  select  few,  and  may  be  regarded  indifferently 
by  all  others.  For  it  is  here  as  with  many  in- 
ventions in  the  arts  and  luxuries  of  life  ;  which, 


*  See  my  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  Germariy,  p.  131. 
\_Pen?ial  meant  '  a  freshman,'  a  term  given  by  the  elder 
students  in  mockery,  because  the  student  in  his  first  year  1 
was  generally  more  industrious,  and  might  be  often  seen 
with  Yi\s  pennal  or  pen-case  about  him.] 

t  For  a  good  recapitulation  of  what  best  has  been 
written  on  '  superstitio,'  see  Pott,  Etym.  Forschitngen^ 
vol.  ii.  p.  921. 


246        On  tJie  Rise  of  New  Words.        i-bct- 

being  at  the  first  the  exclusive  privilege  and 
possession  of  the  wealthy  and  refined,  gradually 
descend  into  lower  strata  of  society,  until  at 
length  what  were  once  the  elegancies  and  luxu- 
ries of  a  few,  have  become  the  decencies,  well- 
nigh  the  necessities,  of  all.  Not  otherwise  there 
are  words,  once  only  on  the  lips  of  philosophers 
or  theologians,  of  the  deeper  thinkers  of  their 
time,  or  of  those  directly  interested  in  their 
speculations,  which  step  by  step  have  come 
down,  not  debasing  themselves  in  this  act  of 
becoming  popular,  but  training  and  elevating 
an  ever-increasing  number  of  persons  to  enter 
into  their  meaning,  till  at  length  they  have  be- 
come truly  a  part  of  the  nation's  common  stock, 
1  household  words,'  used  easily  and  intelligently 
by  nearly  all. 

I  cannot  better  conclude  this  lecture  than  by 
quoting  a  passage,  one  among  many,  which  ex- 
presses with  a  rare  eloquence  all  I  have  been 
labouring  to  utter  ;  for  this  truth,  which  many 
have  noticed,  hardly  any  has  set  forth  with  the 
same  fulness  of  illustration,  or  the  same  sense  of 
its  importance,  as  the  author  of  The  Philosophy 
of  the  Inductive  Sciences.  '  Language,'  he  ob- 
serves, '  is  often  called  an  instrument  of  thought, 
but  it  is  also  the  nutriment  of  thought ;  or 
rather,  it  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  thought 
lives  ;  a  medium  essential  to  the  activity  of  our 
speculative  powers,  although  invisible  and  im- 
perceptible  in  its  operation  ;   and    an    element 


t.  Whewell  qiioted.  247 

modifying,  by  its  qualities  and  changes,  the 
grcwth  and  complexion  of  the  faculties  which  it 
feeds.  In  this  way  the  influence  of  preceding 
discoveries  upon  subsequent  ones,  of  the  past 
upon  the  present,  is  most  penetrating  and  uni- 
versal, although  most  subtle  and  difficult  to 
trace.  The  most  familiar  words  and  phrases  are 
connected  by  imperceptible  ties  with  the  rea 
sonings  and  discoveries  of  former  men  and  dis- 
tant times.  Their  knowledge  is  an  inseparable 
part  of  ours :  the  present  generation  inherits 
and  tses  the  scientific  wealth  of  all  the  past. 
And  this  is  the  fortune,  not  only  of  the  great 
and  rich  in  the  intellectual  world,  of  those  who 
have  the  key  to  the  ancient  storehouses,  and 
who  have  accumulated  treasures  of  their  own, 
but  the  humblest  inquirer,  while  he  puts  his 
reasonings  into  words,  benefits  by  the  labours 
of  the  greatest.  When  he  counts  his  little 
wealth,  he  finds  he  has  in  his  hands  coins  which 
bear  the  image  and  superscription  of  ancient 
and  modern  intellectual  dynasties,  and  that  in 
virtue  of  this  possession  acquisitions  are  in  his 
power,  solid  knowledge  within  his  reach,  which 
none  could  ever  have  attained  to,  if  it  were  not 
that  the  gold  of  truth  once  dug  out  of  the  mine 
circulates  more  and  more  widely  among  man- 
kind.' 


248      On  the  Distiiiction  of  Words.        lkct. 


LECTURE    VI. 

ON   THE   DISTINCTION   OF   WORDS. 

SYNONYMS,  and  the  study  of  synonyms, 
with  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
a  careful  noting  of  the  distinction  between  them, 
constitute  the  subject  with  which  in  my  present 
Lecture  I  shall  deal.  But  what,  you  may  ask, 
is  meant  when,  comparing  certain  words  with 
one  another,  we  affirm  of  them  that  they  are 
synonyms?  We  imply  that,  with  great  and 
essential  resemblances  of  meaning,  they  have  at 
the  same  time  small,  subordinate,  and  partial 
differences — these  differences  being  such  as 
either  originally,  and  on  the  strength  of  their 
etymology,  were  born  with  them  ;  or  differences 
which  they  have  by  usage  acquired  ;  or  such  as, 
though  nearly  or  altogether  latent  now,  they  are 
capable  of  receiving  at  the  hands  of  wise  and 
discreet  masters  of  language.  Synonyms  are  1 
thus  words  of  like  significance  in  the  main  ; 
with  a  large  extent  of  ground  which  they  oc- 
cupy  in  common,  but  also  with  something  of 


; 


»i.  Synonym,  Synonymous.  249 

their  own,  private  and  peculiar,  which  they  do 
not  share  with  one  another.* 

So  soon  as  the  term  '  synonym '  is  defined 
thus,  it  will  be  at  once  perceived  by  any 
acquainted  with  its  etymology,  that,  strictly 
speaking,  it  is  a  misnomer,  and  is  given,  with  a 
certain  inaccuracy  and  impropriety,  to  words 
which  stand  in  such  relations  as  I  have  just 
traced  to  one  another ;  since  in  strictness  of 
speech  the  terms, '  synonyms'  and  'synonymous,' 
applied  to  words,  affirm  of  them  that  they  cover 
not  merely  almost,  but  altogether,  the  same  ex- 
tent of  meaning,  that  they  are  in  their  significa- 
tion perfectly  identical  and  coincident ;  circles, 
so  to  speak,  with  the  same  centre  and  the  same 
circumference.  The  term,  however,  is  not  ordi- 
narily so  used  ;  it  evidently  is  not  so  by  such  as 
undertake  to  trace  out  the  distinction  between 
synonyms  ;  for,  without  venturing  to  deny  that 
there  may  be  such  perfect  synonyms,  words,  that 
is,  with  this  absolute  coincidence  of  the  one  with 
the  other,  yet  these  could  not  be  the  objects  of 


*  The  word  '  synonym '  only  found  its  way  into  the 
English  language  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Its  recent  incoming  is  marked  by  the  Greek  or 
Latin  termination  which  for  a  while  it  bore  ;  Jeremy 
Taylor  writing  '  synonymon,'  Hacket  'synonymum,'  and 
Milton  (in  the  plural)  'synonyma.'  Butler  has  'syn- 
onymas.'  On  the  subject  of  this  chapter  see  Marsh, 
Lectures  on  the  English  Language^  New  York,  i860, 
P-  571,  sqq. 


250      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

any  such  discrimination  ;  since,  where  no  real 
difference  exists,  it  would  be  lost  labour  and 
the  exercise  of  a  perverse  ingenuity  to  attempt 
to  draw  one  out. 

There  are,  indeed,  those  who  assert  that 
words  in  one  language  are  never  exactly  syn- 
onymous, or  in  all  respects  commensurate,  with 
words  in  another  ;  that,  when  they  are  compared 
with  one  another,  there  is  always  something 
more,  or  something  less,  or  something  different, 
in  one  as  compared  with  the  other,  which  hinders 
this  complete  equivalence.  And,  those  words 
being  excepted  which  designate  objects  in  their 
nature  absolutely  incapable  of  a  more  or  less 
and  of  every  qualitative  difference,  I  should  be 
disposed  to  consider  other  exceptions  to  this 
assertion  exceedingly  rare.  '  In  all  languages 
whatever,'  to  quote  Bentley's  words,  '  a  word  of 
a  moral  or  of  a  political  significance,  containing 
several  complex  ideas  arbitrarily  joined  together, 
has  seldom  any  correspondent  word  in  any  other 
language  which  extends  to  all  these  ideas.'  Nor 
is  it  hard  to  trace  reasons  sufficient  why  this 
should  be  so.  For  what,  after  all,  is  a  word, 
but  the  enclosure  for  human  use  of  a  certain 
district,  larger  or  smaller,  from  the  vast  outfield 
of  thought  or  feeling  or  fact,  and  in  this  way  a 
bringing  of  it  under  human  cultivation,  a  rescuing 
of  it  for  human  uses?  But  how  extremely 
unlikely  it  is  that  nations,  drawing  quite  in- 
dependently of  one  another  these  lines  of  en- 


n.  Difficulties  of  Translation.         251 

closure,  should  draw  them  in  all  or  most  cases 
exactly  in  the  same  direction,  neither  narrower 
nor  wider ;  how  almost  inevitable,  on  the  contrary, 
that  very  often  the  lines  should  not  coincide — 
and  this,  even  supposing  no  moral  forces  at  work 
to  disturb  the  falling  of  the  lines. 

How  immense  and  instructive  a  field  of  com- 
parison between  languages  does  this  fact  lay 
open  to  us  ;  while  it  is  sufficient  to  drive  a  trans- 
lator with  a  high  ideal  of  the  task  which  he  has 
undertaken  well-nigh  to  despair.  For  indeed 
in  the  transferring  of  any  matter  of  high  worth 
from  one  language  to  another  there  are  losses 
involved,  which  no  labour,  no  skill,  no  genius, 
no  mastery  of  one  language  or  of  both  can  pre- 
vent. The  translator  may  have  worthily  done 
his  part,  may  have '  turned  '  and  not '  overturned  ' 
his  original  (St.  Jerome  complains  that  in  his 
time  many  versiones  deserved  to  be  called  ever- 
siones  rather) ;  he  may  have  given  the  lie  to 
the  Italian  proverb,  '  Traduttori  Traditori,'  or 
1  Translators  Traitors,'  men,  that  is,  who  do  not 
•  render '  but  '  surrender '  their  author's  meaning, 
and  yet  for  all  this  the  losses  of  which  I  speak 
will  not  have  been  avoided.  Translations,  let 
them  have  been  carried  through  with  what  skill 
they  may,  are,  as  one  has  said,  belles  infideles 
at  the  best. 

How  often  in  the  translation  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture from  the  language  wherein  it  was  first 
delivered    into  some   other   which    offers  more 


252      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


LECT. 


words  than  one  whereby  some  all-important 
word  in  the  original  record  may  be  rendered, 
the  perplexity  has  been  great  which  of  these 
should  be  preferred.  Not,  indeed,  that  there  was 
here  an  embarrassment  of  riches,  but  rather  an 
embarrassment  of  poverty.  Each,  it  may  be, 
has  advantages  of  its  own,  but  each  also  its 
own  drawbacks  and  shortcomings.  There  is 
nothing  but  a  choice  of  difficulties  anyhow,  and 
whichever  is  selected,  it  will  be  found  that  the 
treasure  of  God's  thought  has  been  committed 
to  an  earthen  vessel,  and  one  whose  earthiness 
will  not  fail  at  this  point  or  at  that  to  appear ; 
while  yet,  with  all  this,  of  what  far-reaching 
importance  it  is  that  the  best,  that  is,  the  least 
inadequate,  word  should  be  chosen.  Thus  the 
missionary  translator,  if  he  be  at  all  aware  of 
the  awful  implement  which  he  is  wielding,  of 
the  tremendous  crisis  in  a  people's  spiritual  life 
which  has  arrived,  when  their  language  is  first 
made  the  vehicle  of  the  truths  of  Revelation, 
will  often  tremble  at  the  work  he  has  in  hand  ; 
he  will  tremble  lest  he  should  permanently  lower 
or  confuse  the  whole  spiritual  life  of  a  people, 
by  choosing  a  meaner  and  letting  go  a  nobler 
word  for  the  setting  forth  of  some  leading  truth 
of  redemption  ;  and  yet  the  choice  how  difficult, 
the  nobler  itself  falling  how  infinitely  below  his 
desires,  and  below  the  truth  of  which  he  would 
make  it  the  bearer. 

Even    those    who   are    wholly   ignorant    of 


w.  Sermo,  Verbum.  253 

Chinese  can  yet  perceive  how  vast  the  spiritual 
interests  which  are  at  stake  in  China,  how  much 
will  be  won  or  how  much  lost  for  the  whole 
spiritual  life  of  its  people,  it  may  be  for  ages 
to  come,  according  as  the  right  or  the  wrong 
word  is  selected  by  our  missionaries  there  for 
designating  the  true  and  the  living  God.  As 
many  of  us  indeed  as  are  ignorant  of  the  lan- 
guage can  be  no  judges  in  the  controversy  which 
on  this  matter  is,  or  was  lately,  carried  on  ;  but 
we  can  all  feel  how  vital  the  question,  how 
enormous  the  interests  at  stake  ;  while,  not  less, 
having  heard  the  allegations  on  the  one  side 
and  on  the  other,  we  must  own  that  there  is  only 
an  alternative  of  difficulties  here.  Nearer  home 
there  have  been  difficulties  of  the  same  kind. 
At  the  Reformation,  for  example,  when  Latin 
was  still  more  or  less  the  language  of  theology, 
how  earnest  a  controversy  raged  round  the  word 
in  the  Greek  Testament  which  we  have  rendered 
•  repentance '  ;  whether  '  pcenitentia '  should  be 
allowed  to  stand,  hallowed  by  long  usage  as  it 
was,  or  '  resipiscentia,'  as  many  of  the  Reformers 
preferred,  should  be  substituted  in  its  room  ; 
and  how  much  on  either  side  could  be  urged. 
Not  otherwise,  at  an  earlier  date,  '  Sermo '  and 
'  Verbum '  contended  for  the  honour  of  render- 
ing the  '  Logos '  of  St.  John  ;  though  here  there 
can  be  no  serious  doubt  on  which  side  the  ad- 
vantage lay,  and  that  in  '  Verbum  '  the  right 
word  was  chosen. 


254      On  the.  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

But  this  of  the  relation  of  words  in  one 
laneuaee  to  words  in  another,  and  of  all  the 
questions  which  may  thus  be  raised,  is  a  sea  too 
large  for  me  to  launch  upon  now  ;  and  with  thus 
much  said  to  invite  you  to  have  open  eyes  and 
ears  for  such  questions,  seeing  that  they  are 
often  full  of  teaching,*  I  must  leave  this  subject, 
and  limit  myself  in  this  Lecture  to  a  comparison 
between  words,  not  in  different  languages,  but 
in  the  same. 

Synonyms  then,  as  the  term  is  generally 
understood,  and  as  I  shall  use  it,  are  words  in 
the  same  language  with  slight  differences  either 
already  established  between  them,  or  potentially 
subsisting  in  them.  They  are  not  on  the  one 
side  words  absolutely  identical,  for  such,  as  has 
been  said  already,  afford  no  room  for  discrimi- 
nation ;  but  neither  on  the  other  side  are  they 
words  only  remotely  similar  to  one  another ; 
for  the  differences  between  these  last  will  be 
self-evident,  will  so  lie  on  the  surface  and  pro- 
claim themselves  to  all,  that  it  would  be  as 
superfluous  an  office  as  holding  a  candle  to  the 
sun  to  attempt  to  make  this  clearer  than  it 
already  is.     It  may  be  desirable  to   trace  and 

•  Pott  in  his  Etymol.  Forschiwgen,  vol.  v.  p.  lxix, 
find  elsewhere,  has  much  interesting  instruction  on  the 
subject.  There  were  four  attempts  to  render  elpcaveLa, 
itself,  it  is  true  a  very  subtle  word.  They  are  these  : 
•dissimulatio'  (Cicero);  'illusio'  (Quintilian) ;  '  simu- 
latio  '  and  '  irrisio.' 


vh  How  Synonyms  exist.  255 

fix  the  difference  between  scarlet  and  crimson, 
for  these  might  easily  be  confounded  ;  but  who 
would  think  of  so  doing  between  scarlet  and 
green  ?  or  between  covetousness  and  avarice  ; 
while  it  would  be  idle  and  superfluous  to  do 
the  same  for  covetousness  and  pride.  They 
must  be  words  more  or  less  liable  to  confusion, 
but  which  yet  ought  not  to  be  confounded,  as 
one  has  said  ;  in  which  there  originally  inhered  a 
difference,  or  between  which,  though  once  ab- 
solutely identical,  such  has  gradually  grown  up, 
and  so  established  itself  in  the  use  of  the  best 
writers,  and  in  the  instinct  of  the  best  speakers 
of  the  tongue,  that  it  claims  to  be  openly  re- 
cognized by  all. 

But  here  an  interesting  question  presents 
itself  to  us  :  How  do  languages  come  to  possess 
synonyms  of  this  latter  class,  which  are  dif- 
ferenced not  by  etymology,  nor  by  any  other 
deep-lying  cause,  but  only  by  usage  ?  Now  if 
languages  had  been  made  by  agreement,  of 
course  no  such  synonyms  as  these  could  exist ; 
for  when  once  a  word  had  been  found  which 
was  the  adequate  representative  of  a  thought, 
feeling,  or  fact,  no  second  one  would  have  been 
sought.  But  languages  are  the  result  of  pro- 
cesses very  different  from  this,  and  far  less 
formal  and  regular.  Various  tribes,  each  with 
its  own  dialect,  kindred  indeed,  but  in  many 
respects  distinct,  coalesce  into  one  people,  and 
cast  their  contributions  of  language  into  a  com- 


256      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.       lkct. 

mon  stock.  Thus  the  French  possess  many 
synonyms  from  t\\<zlangue  dOc  and  langued'O'it, 
each  having  contributed  its  word  for  one  and  the 
same  thing  ;  thus  '  atre '  and  '  foyer,'  both  for 
hearth.  Sometimes  different  tribes  of  the  same 
people  have  the  same  word,  yet  in  forms  suffici- 
ently different  to  cause  that  both  remain,  but  as 
words  distinct  from  one  another  ;  thus  in  Latin 
'serpo'  and  '  repo  '  are  dialectic  variations  of 
the  same  word  ;  just  as  in  German, '  odem  '  and 
'athem'  were  no  more  than  dialectic  differences 
at  the  first.  Or  again,  a  conquering  people 
have  fixed  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  con- 
quered ;  they  impose  their  dominion,  but  do  not 
succeed  in  imposing  their  language  ;  nay,  being 
few  in  number,  they  find  themselves  at  last  com- 
pelled to  adopt  the  language  of  the  conquered  ; 
yet  not  so  but  that  a  certain  compromise  between 
the  two  languages  finds  place.  One  carries  the 
day,  but  on  the  condition  that  it  shall  admit  as 
naturalized  denizens  a  number  of  the  words  of 
the  other  ;  which  in  some  instances  expel,  but 
in  many  others  subsist  as  synonyms  side  by  side 
with,  the  native  words. 

These  are  causes  of  the  existence  of  synonyms 
which  reach  far  back  into  the  history  of  a  nation 
and  a  language  ;  but  other  causes  at  a  later  period 
are  also  at  work.  When  a  written  literature  springs 
up,  authors  familiar  with  various  foreign  tongues 
import  from  one  and  another  words  which  are 
not  absolutely    required,  which    are  oftentimes 


vi.  How  Synonyms  exist.  25; 


rather  luxuries  than  necessities.  Sometimes, 
having  a  very  sufficient  word  of  their  own,  they 
must  needs  go  and  look  for  a  finer  one,  as  they 
esteem  it,  from  abroad  ;  as,  for  instance,  the 
Latin  having  its  own  expressive  '  succinum ' 
(from  'succus'),  for  amber,  some  must  import 
from  the  Greek  the  ambiguous  'electrum.'  Of 
these  thus  proposed  as  candidates  for  admission, 
some  fail  to  obtain  the  rights  of  citizenship,  and 
after  longer  or  shorter  probation  are  rejected  ;  it 
may  be,  never  advance  beyond  their  first  pro- 
poser. Enough,  however,  receive  the  stamp  of 
popular  allowance  to  create  embarrassment  for 
a  while  ;  until,  that  is,  their  relations  with  the 
already  existing  words  are  adjusted.  As  a  single 
illustration  of  the  various  quarters  from  which 
the  English  has  thus  been  augmented  and 
enriched,  I  would  instance  the  words  'wile,' 
'  trick,'  '  device,'  '  finesse,'  '  artifice,'  and  '  strata- 
gem,' and  remind  you  of  the  various  sources 
from  which  we  have  drawn  them.  Here  '  wile,' 
is  Old-English,  'trick'  is  Dutch,  'devise'  is 
Old-French,  '  finesse  '  is  French,  '  artificium '  is 
Latin,  and  '  aTpaTyyrjjia '  Greek. 

By  and  by,  however,  as  a  language  becomes 
itself  an  object  of  closer  attention,  at  the  same 
time  that  society,  advancing  from  a  simpler  to 
a  more  complex  condition,  has  more  things  to 
designate,  more  thoughts  to  utter,  and  more  dis- 
tinctions to  draw,  it  is  felt  as  a  waste  of  resources 
to  employ  two  or  more  words  for  the  designating 

S 


25S       On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect 

of  one  and  the  same  thing.  Men  feel,  and 
rightly,  that  with  a  boundless  world  lying 
around  them  and  demanding  to  be  catalogued 
and  named,  and  which  they  only  make  truly 
their  own  in  the  measure  and  to  the  extent  that 
they  do  name  it,  with  infinite  shades  and  varieties 
of  thought  and  feeling  subsisting  in  their  own 
minds,  and  claiming  to  find  utterance  in  words, 
it  is  a  wanton  extravagance  to  expend  two  or 
more  signs  on  that  which  coiild  adequately  be 
set  forth  by  one — an  extravagance  in  one  part 
of  their  expenditure,  which  will  be  almost  sure 
to  issue  in,  and  to  be  punished  by,  a  correspond- 
ing scantness  and  straitness  in  another.  Some 
thought  or  feeling  or  fact  will  wholly  want  one 
adequate  sign,  because  another  has  two.*  Here- 
upon that  which  has  been  well  called  the  pro- 
cess of  '  desynonymizing  '  begins — that  is,  of 
gradually  discriminating  in  use  between  words 

*  We  have  a  memorable  example  of  this  in  the  history 
of  the  great  controversy  of  the  Church  with  the  Arians. 
In  the  earlier  stages  of  this,  the  upholders  of  the  orthodox 
faith  used  ova-La  and  vTroarao-is  as  identical  in  force  and 
meaning  with  one  another,  Athanasius,  in  as  many  words, 
affirming  them  to  be  such.  As,  however,  the  controversy 
went  forward,  it  was  perceived  that  doctrinal  results  of 
the  highest  importance  might  be  fixed  and  secured  for 
the  Church  through  the  assigning  severally  to  these  words 
distinct  modifications  of  meaning.  This,  accordingly,  in 
the  Greek  Church,  was  done ;  while  the  Latin,  desiring 
to  move  pari  passu,  did  yet  find  itself  most  seriously  em- 
barrassed and  hindered  in  so  doing  by  the  fact  that  it 
had,  or  assumed  that  it  had,  but  the  one  word,  'sub- 
stantia,' to  correspond  to  the  two  Greek. 


vi.  Process  of  Desynonymizing.        259 

which  have  hitherto  been  accounted  perfectly 
equivalent,  and,  as  such,  indifferently  employed. 
It  is  a  positive  enriching  of  a  language  when 
this  process  is  at  any  point  felt  to  be  accom- 
plished ;  when  two  or  more  words,  once  promis- 
cuously used,  have  had  each  its  own  peculiar 
domain  assigned  to  it,  which  it  shall  not  itself 
overstep,  upon  which  others  shall  not  encroach. 
This  may  seem  at  first  sight  only  as  a  better 
regulation  of  old  territory  ;  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses it  is  the  acquisition  of  new. 

This  desynonymizing  process  is  not  carried 
out  according  to  any  prearranged  purpose  or 
plan.  The  working  genius  of  the  language 
accomplishes  its  own  objects,  causes  these  syn- 
onymous words  insensibly  to  fall  off  from  one 
another,  and  to  acquire  separate  and  peculiar 
meanings.  The  most  that  any  single  writer  can 
do,  save  indeed  in  the  terminology  of  science, 
is  to  assist  an  already  existing  inclination,  to 
bring  to  the  clear  consciousness  of  all  that  which 
already  has  been  obscurely  felt  by  many,  and 
thus  to  hasten  the  process  of  this  disengagement, 
or,  as  it  has  been  well  expressed,  '  to  regulate 
and  ordinate  the  evident  nisus  and  tendency  of 
the  popular  usage  into  a  severe  definition ' ;  and 
establish  on  a  firm  basis  the  distinction,  so  that 
it  shall  not  be  lost  sight  of  or  brought  into  ques- 
tion again.  Thus  long  before  Wordsworth  wrote, 
it  was  obscurely  felt  by  many  that  in  '  imagina- 
tion '  there  was  more  of  the  earnest,  in  '  fancy ' 

3  2 


2  6o      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        «cr- 


of  the  play,  of  the  spirit,  that  the  first  was  a 
loftier  faculty  and  power  than  the  second.  The 
tendency  of  the  language  was  all  in  this  direction. 
None  would  for  some  time  back  have  employed 
•fancy'  as  Milton  employs  it,*  ascribing  to  it 
operations  which  we  have  learned  to  reserve  for 
1  imagination  '  alone,  and  indeed  subordinating 
'  imaginations '  to  fancy,  as  a  part  of  the 
materials  with  which  it  deals.  Yet  for  all  this 
the  words  were  continually,  and  not  without 
injury,  confounded.  Wordsworth  first,  in  the 
Preface  to  his  Lyrical  Ballads,  rendered  it  im- 
possible for  any,  who  had  read  and  mastered 
what  he  had  written  on  the  matter,  to  remain 
unconscious  any  longer  of  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  them.f     This  is  but  one  example, 


*  Paradise  Lost,  v.  102-105  ;  so  too  Longinus,  De 
Subl.  15. 

t  Thus  De  Quincey  {Letters  to  a  Young  Man  whose 
Education  has  been  neglected) :  '  All  languages  tend  to 
clear  themselves  of  synonyms,  as  intellectual  culture 
advances  ;  the  superfluous  words  being  taken  up  and  ap- 
propriated by  new  shades  and  combinations  of  thought 
evolved  in  the  progress  of  society.  And  long  before  this 
appropriation  is  fixed  and  petrified,  as  it  were,  into  the 
acknowledged  vocabulary  of  the  language,  an  insensible 
dinamen  (to  borrow  a  Lucretian  word)  prepares  the  way 
for  it.  Thus,  for  instance,  before  Mr.  Wordsworth  had 
unveiled  the  great  philosophic  distinction  between  the 
powers  of  fancy  and  imagination,  the  two  words  had 
begun  to  diverge  from  each  other,  the  first  being  used  to 
express  a  faculty  somewhat  capricious  and  exempted 
from  law,  the  other  to  express  a  faculty  more  self-deter- 


vi-  Famine,  Hunger.  261 

an  illustrious  one  indeed,  of  what  has  been 
going  forward  in  innumerable  pairs  of  words. 
Thus  in  Wiclifs  time  and  long  after,  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  difference  recognized 
between  a  '  famine '  and  a  '  hunger  ' ;  they  both 
expressed  the  outward  fact  of  a  scarcity  of  food. 
It  was  a  genuine  gain  when,  leaving  to '  famine ' 
this  meaning,  by  '  hunger '  was  expressed  no 
longer  the  outward  fact,  but  the  inward  sense  of 
the  fact.     Other  pairs  of  words  between  which 


mined.  When,  therefore,  it  was  at  length  perceived,  that 
under  an  apparent  unity  of  meaning  there  lurked  a  real 
dualism,  and  for  philosophic  purposes  it  was  necessary 
that  this  distinction  should  have  its  appropriate  expres- 
sion, this  necessity  was  met  half  way  by  the  clinamen 
which  had  already  affected  the  popular  usage  of  the 
words.'  Compare  what  Coleridge  had  before  said  on  the 
same  matter,  Biogr.  Lit.  vol.  i.  p.  90  j  and  what  Ruskin, 
Modern  Painters,  part  3,  §  2,  ch.  3,  has  said  since.  It  is 
to  Coleridge  that  we  owe  the  word  'to  desynonymize ' 
{Biogr.  Lit.  p.  87) — which  is  certainly  preferable  to  Pro- 
fessor Grote's  '  despecificate.'  Purists  indeed  will  object 
that  it  is  of  hybrid  formation,  the  prefix  Latin,  the  body 
of  the  word  Greek;  but  for  all  this  it  may  very  well  stand 
till  a  better  is  offered.  Coleridge's  own  contributions, 
direct  and  indirect,  in  this  province  are  perhaps  more  in 
number  and  in  value  than  those  of  any  other  English 
writer ;  thus  to  him  we  owe  the  disentanglement  of 
'  fanaticism'  and  'enthusiasm'  {Lit.  Rem.  vol.  ii.  p.  365)  ; 
of  'keenness'  and  'subtlety'  {Table-Talk,  p.  140);  of 
•poetry'  and  'poesy'  {Lit.  Rem.  vol.  i.  p.  219);  of 
•analogy'  and  'metaphor'  {Aids  to  Reflection,  1825, 
p.  198) ;  and  that  on  which  he  himself  laid  so  great  a 
stress,  of  '  reason '  and  '  understanding.' 


262      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.       lkct. 


a  distinction  is  recognized  now  which  was  not 
recognized  some  centuries  ago,  are  the  follow- 
ing :    *  to    clarify '    and    '  to    glorify '  ;    'to    ad- 
mire' and  '  to  wonder  '  ;  '  to  convince'  and  '  to 
convict ' ;  '  reign  '  and  '  kingdom  '  ;  '  ghost  '  and 
'spirit';  'merit'  and  'demerit';  'mutton'  and 
'  sheep '  ;  '  feminine  '  and  '  effeminate '  ;  '  mortal ' 
and    'deadly';    'ingenious'    and  '  ingenuous ' ; 
'  needful '  and  '  needy ' ; '  voluntary  '  and  '  wilful.'* 
A  multitude  of  words  in   English  are  still 
waiting  for  a  similar  discrimination.     Many  in 
due  time  will  obtain  it,  and  the  language  prove 
so    much   the   richer   thereby  ;   for  certainly  if 
Coleridge  had  right  when  he  affirmed  that '  every 
new  term  expressing  a  fact  or  a  difference  not 
precisely  or  adequately  expressed  by  any  other 
word  in  the  same  language,  is  a  new  organ  of 
I  thought  for  the  mind  that  has  learned  it,'  f  we 
are  justified  in  regarding  these  distinctions  which 
are  still  waiting  to  be  made  as  so  much  rever- 
sionary wealth  in  our  mother  tongue.    Thus  how 
real  an  ethical  gain  would  it  be,  how  much  clear- 
ness would  it  bring  into  men's  thoughts  and 
actions,  if  the  distinction  which  exists  in  Latin 
between  '  vindicta '  and  '  ultio,'  that  the  first  is 
a  moral  act,  the  just  punishment  of  the  sinner 
by  his  God,  of  the  criminal  by  the  judge,  the 
other  an  act  in  which  the  self-gratification  of  one 

*  For  the  exact  difference  between  these,  and  other 
pairs  or  larger  groups  of  words,  see  my  Select  Glossary, 
t  Church  and  State,  p.  200 


vi.  Vengeance,  Revenge.  26 


0 


who  counts  himself  injured  or  offended  is  sought, 
could  in  like  manner  be  fully  established  (vaguely 
felt  it  already  is)  between  our  '  vengeance  '  and 
'  revenge ' ;  so  that  '  vengeance  '  (with  the  verb 
'  to  avenge ')  should  never  be  ascribed  except  to 
God,  or  to  men  acting  as  the  executors  of  his 
righteous  doom  ;  while  all  retaliation  to  which 
not  zeal  for  his  righteousness,  but  men's  own 
sinful  passions  have  given  the  impulse  and  the 
motive,  should  be  termed  '  revenge.'  As  it  now 
is,  the  moral  disapprobation  which  cleaves,  and 
cleaves  justly,  to  '  revenge,'  is  oftentimes  trans- 
ferred almost  unconsciously  to  '  vengeance  ' ; 
while  yet  without  vengeance  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  in  a  world  so  full  of  evil-doing  any 
effectual  assertion  of  righteousness,  any  moral 
government  whatever. 

The  causes  mentioned  above,  namely  that 
cur  modern  English,  Teutonic  in  its  main  struc- 
ture, yet  draws  so  large  a  portion  of  its  verbal 
wealth  from  the  Latin,  and  has  further  wel- 
comed, and  found  place  for,  many  later  acces- 
sions, these  causes  have  together  effected  that  we 
possess  a  great  many  duplicates,  not  to  speak 
of  triplicates,  or  of  such  a  quintuplicate  as  that 
which  I  adduced  just  now,  where  the  Teutonic, 
French,  Italian,  Latin,  and  Greek  had  each 
yielded  us  a  word.  Let  me  mention  a  few 
duplicate  substantives,  Old-English  and  Latin  : 
thus  we  have  '  shepherd  '  and  '  pastor ' ;  '  feeling  ' 
and  'sentiment'  ■   'handbook'  and  'manual  '; 


264      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.       lec*. 

'ship'  and  'nave';  'anger'  and  'ire';  'grief 
and  '  sorrow ' ;  '  kingdom,'  '  reign,'  and  '  realm  ' ; 
'  love '  and  '  charity  '  ;  '  feather  '  and  '  plume  ' ; 
'forerunner'  and  'precursor';  'foresight'  and 
1  providence  '  ;  '  freedom  '  and  '  liberty  '  ;  '  bitter- 
ness '  and  'acerbity';  'murder'  and  'homicide' ; 
'  moons '  and  '  lunes.'  Sometimes,  in  theology 
and  science  especially,  we  have  gone  both  to  the 
Latin  and  to  the  Greek,  and  drawn  the  same 
word  from  them  both  :  thus  'deist'  and  '  theist ' ; 
'  numeration '  and  '  arithmetic ' ;  '  revelation  ' 
and  '  apocalypse  '  ;  '  temporal '  and  '  chronic  '  ; 
'compassion'  and  'sympathy';  'supposition' 
and  '  hypothesis  ' ;  '  transparent '  and  '  diapha- 
nous'; 'digit'  and  'dactyle.'  But  to  return  to 
the  Old-English  and  Latin,  the  main  factors  of 
our  tongue.  Besides  duplicate  substantives,  we 
have  duplicate  verbs,  such  as  'to  whiten'  and 
'to  blanch';  'to  soften'  and  'to  mollify'  ;  'to 
unload'  and  'to  exonerate';  'to  hide'  and 
'  to  conceal '  ;  with  many  more.  Duplicate 
adjectives  also  are  numerous,  as  '  shady '  and 
'  umbrageous ' ; '  unreadable '  and  '  illegible ' ; '  un- 
friendly '  and  '  inimical ' ;  '  almighty '  and  '  om- 
nipotent '  ;  '  wholesome  '  and  '  salubrious  '  ; 
*  unshunnable  '  and  '  inevitable.'  Occasionally 
our  modern  English,  not  adopting  the  Latin  sub- 
stantive, has  admitted  duplicate  adjectives  ;  thus 
'  burden  '  has  not  merely  '  burdensome  '  but  also 
'  onerous,'  while  yet  '  onus '  has  found  no  place 
with  us  ;  '  priest '  has  '  priestly '  and  '  sacerdotal ' ; 
1  king '   has   '  kingly,'   '  regal,'   which    is  purely 


n. 


Duplicate  Words.  265 


Latin,  and  '  royal,'  which  is  Latin  distilled 
through  the  French.  '  Bodily  '  and  '  corporal, 
'  boyish  '  and  '  puerile,'  '  fiery '  and  '  igneous, 
'  wooden'and  'ligneous,"  worldly 'and  'mundane, 
'  bloody '  and  '  sanguine,' '  watery '  and  '  aqueous, 
'  fearful '  and  '  timid,'  '  manly  '  and  '  virile, 
'womanly 'and  '  feminine,' 'sunny' and  'solar, 
'  starry  '  and  '  stellar,'  '  yearly '  and  '  annual, 
'  weighty '  and  '  ponderous,'  may  all  be  placed 
in  the  same  list.  Nor  are  these  more  than  a 
handful  of  words  out  of  the  number  which  might 
be  adduced.  You  would  find  both  pleasure  and 
profit  in  enlarging  these  lists,  and,  as  far  as  you 
are  able,  making  them  gradually  complete. 

If  we  look  closely  at  words  which  have  suc- 
ceeded in  thus  maintaining  their  ground  side  by 
side,  and  one  no  less  than  the  other,  we  shall  note 
that  in  almost  every  instance  they  have  little  by 
little  asserted  for  themselves  separate  spheres  of 
meaning,  have  in  usage  become  more  or  less  dis- 
tinct. Thus  we  uss  '  shepherd '  almost  always 
in  its  primary  meaning,  keeper  of  sheep  ;  while 
'  pastor  '  is  exclusively  used  in  the  tropical  sense, 
one  that  feeds  the  flock  of  God  ;  at  the  same 
time  the  language  having  only  the  one  adjective, 
'  pastoral,'  that  is  of  necessity  common  to  both. 
'  Love '  and  '  charity '  are  used  in  our  Authorized 
Version  of  Scripture  promiscuously,  and  out  of 
the  sense  of  their  equivalence  are  made  to  re- 
present one  and  the  same  Greek  word  ;  but  in 
modern  use  'charity'  has  come  predominantly 
to  signify  one  particular  manifestation  of  love, 


266      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


the    ministry    to    the   bodily    needs    of    others, 
1  love  '  continuing  to  express  the  affection  of  the 
soul.     ■  Ship '    remains    in    its    literal    meaning, 
while  '  nave '  has  become  a  symbolic  term  used 
in    sacred    architecture   alone.     •  Kingdom  '    is 
concrete,  as  the   '  kingdom  '  of  Great  Britain  ; 
1  reign '  is  abstract,  the  «  reign '  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria.    An  '  auditor '   and  a  [  hearer  '  are  now, 
though  they  were  not  once,  altogether  different 
from  one  another.     'Illegible' is  applied  to  the 
handwriting,  «  unreadable  '  to  the  subject-matter 
written  ;  a  man  writes  an  '  illegible  '  hand  ;  he 
has    published    an   •  unreadable  '  book.     ■  Fore- 
sight '  is  ascribed  to  men,  but  '  providence '  for 
the  most  part  designates,  as  irpovoia  also  came 
to  do,  the  far-looking  wisdom  of  God,  by  which 
He  governs  and  graciously  cares  for  his  people. 
It  becomes  boys  to  be  '  boyish,'  but  not  men  to 
be  '  puerile.'     «  To  blanch  '  is  to  withdraw  colour- 
ing matter  :  we  '  blanch  '  almonds  or  linen  ;  or 
the  cheek  by  the  withdrawing  of  the  blood  is 
*  blanched  '  with  fear  ;  but  we '  whiten  '  a  wall,  not 
by  withdrawing  some  other  colour,  but  by  the 
superinducing  of  white  ;  thus  '  whited  sepulchres.' 
When  we  '  palliate '  our  own  or  other  people's 
faults,  we  do  not  seek !  to  cloke '  them  altogether, 
but  only  to  extenuate  the  guilt  of  them  in  part. 
It  might  be  urged  that  there  was  a  certain 
preparedness  in  these  words  to  separate  off  in 
their  meaning  from   one  another,  inasmuch  as 
they   originally    belonged    to    different   stocks ; 
and  this  may  very  well  have  assisted  ;   but  we 


«•  Astronomy,  Astrology.  267 

find  the  same  process  at  work  where  original 
difference  of  stock  can  have  supplied  no  such 
assistance.  '  Astronomy '  and  '  astrology  '  are 
both  words  drawn  from  the  Greek,  nor  is  there 
any  reason  beforehand  why  the  second  should 
not  be  in  as  honourable  use  as  the  first  ;  for  it  is 
the  reason,  as  '  astronomy  '  the  lazv,  of  the  stars.* 
But  seeing  there  is  a  true  and  a  false  science  of 
the  stars,  both  needing  words  to  utter  them,  it 
has  come  to  pass  that  in  our  later  use,  '  astro- 
logy '  designates  always  that  pretended  science  of 
imposture,  which  affecting  to  submit  the  moral 
freedom  of  men  to  the  influences  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  prognosticates  future  events  from  the 
position  of  these,  as  contrasted  with  '  astronomy/ 
that  true  science  which  investigates  the  laws  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  in  their  relations  to  one 
another  and  to  the  planet  upon  which  we  dwell. 
As  these  are  both  from  the  Greek,  so '  despair ' 
and  'diffidence'  are  both,  though  the  second 
more  directly  than  the  first,  from  the  Latin.    At  a 


*  So  entirely  was  any  determining  reason  wanting, 
that  for  some  while  it  was  a  question  which  word  should 
obtain  the  honourable  employment,  and  it  seemed  as  il 
'astrology  '  and  'astrologer'  would  have  done  so,  as  this 
extract  from  Bishop  Hooper  makes  abundantly  plain 
{Early  Writings,  Parker  Society,  p.  331)  :  'The  astro- 
loger is  he  that  knoweth  the  course  and  motions  of  the 
heavens  and  teacheth  the  same  ;  which  is  a  virtue  if  it 
pass  not  its  bounds,  and  become  of  an  astrologer  an 
astronomer,  who  taketh  upon  him  to  give  judgment  and 
censure  of  these  motions  and  courses  of  the  heavens, 
what  they  prognosticate  and  destiny  unto  the  creature.' 


268      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


period  not  very  long  past  the  difference  between 
them  was  hardly  appreciable  ;  one  was  hardly 
stronger  than  the  other.  If  in  one  the  absence 
of  all  hope,  in  the  other  that  of  all  faith,  was 
implied.  In  Tlie  Pilgrim's  Progress,  a  book 
with  which  every  English  schoolmaster  should 
be  familiar,  'Mistress  Diffidence1  is  'Giant  De- 
spair's' wife,  and  not  a  whit  behind  him  in 
deadly  enmity  to  the  pilgrims  ;  even  as  Jeremy 
Taylor  speaks  of  the  impenitent  sinner's  '■dif- 
fidence in  the  hour  of  death,'  meaning,  as  the 
context  plainly  shows,  his  despair.  But  to  what 
end  two  words  for  one  and  the  same  thing? 
And  thus  '  diffidence '  did  not  retain  that  energy 
of  meaning  which  it  had  at  the  first,  but  little 
by  little  assumed  a  more  mitigated  sense, 
(Hobbes  speaks  of  '  men's  diffidence,'  meaning 
their  distrust  '  of  one  another,')  till  it  has  come 
now  to  signify  a  becoming  distrust  of  ourselves, 
a  humble  estimate  of  our  own  powers,  with  only 
a  slight  intimation,  as  in  the  later  use  of  the 
Latin  '  verecundia,'  that  perhaps  this  distrust  is 
carried  too  far. 

Again,  '  interference  '  and  '  interposition  '  are 
both  from  the  Latin  ;  and  here  too  there  is  no 
anterior  necessity  that  they  should  possess  those 
different  shades  of  meaning  which  actually  they 
have  obtained  among  us  ;— the  Latin  verbs  which 
form  their  latter  halves  being  about  as  strong 
one  as  the  other.*    And  yet  in  our  practical  use, 


•  [The  word  interference  is  a  derivative  from  the  verb 


vi.  Interference,  Interposition.  269 

'  interference '  is  something  offensive  ;  it  is  the 
pushing  in  of  himself  between  two  parties  on 
the  part  of  a  third,  who  was  not  asked,  and  is 
not  thanked  for  his  pains,  and  who,  as  the 
feeling  of  the  word  implies,  had  no  business 
there ;  while  *  interposition  '  is  employed  to 
express  the  friendly  peace-making  mediation 
of  one  whom  the  act  well  became,  and  who 
even  if  he  was  not  specially  invited  there- 
unto, is  still  thanked  for  what  he  has  done. 
How  real  an  increase  is  it  in  the  wealth  and 
efficiency  of  a  language  thus  to  have  discrimi- 
nated such  words  as  these  ;  and  to  be  able  to 
express  acts  outwardly  the  same  by  differ- 
ent words,  according  as  we  would  praise  or 
blame  the  temper  and  spirit  out  of  which  they 
sprung.* 

ferire,  to  strike,  which  is  certainly  stronger  in  meaning 
than  flonere,  to  place.] 

*  If  in  the  course  of  time  distinctions  are  thus  created, 
and  if  this  is  the  tendency  of  language,  yet  they  are  also 
sometimes,  though  far  less  often,  obliterated.  Thus  the 
fine  distinction  between  'yea'  and  'yes/  'nay'  and  'no,' 
once  existing  in  English,  has  quite  disappeared.  'Yea' 
and  '  Nay,'  in  Wiclif  s  time,  and  a  good  deal  later,  were 
the  answers  to  questions  framed  in  the  affirmative.  '  Will 
he  come?'  To  this  it  would  have  been  replied,  'Yea'  or 
'  Nay,'  as  the  case  might  be.  But  'Will  he  not  come?' 
■ — to  this  the  answer  would  have  been,  '  Yes,'  or  '  No.' 
Sir  Thomas  More  finds  fault  with  Tyndale,  that  in  his 
translation  of  the  Bible  he  had  not  observed  this  distinc- 
tion, which  was  evidently  therefore  going  out  even  then, 
that  is  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  shortly  after  it 
was  quite  forgotten. 


2  jo      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        l*ct. 

Take  now  some  words  not  thus  dcsynony- 
mized  by  usage  only,  but  having  a  fundamental 
etymological  distinction, — one,  however,  which 
it  would  be  easy  to  overlook,  and  which,  so 
long  as  we  dwell  on  the  surface  of  the  word,  we 
shall  overlook  ;  and  try  whether  we  shall  not 
be  gainers  by  bringing  out  the  distinction  into 
clear  consciousness.  Here  are  '  arrogant,'  '  pre- 
sumptuous,' and  '  insolent ' ;  we  often  use  them 
promiscuously  ;  yet  let  us  examine  them  a  little 
more  closely,  and  ask  ourselves,  as  soon  as  we 
have  traced  the  lines  of  demarcation  between 
them,  whether  we  are  not  now  in  possession  of 
three  distinct  thoughts,  instead  of  a  single  con- 
fused one.  He  is  '  arrogant,'  who  claims  the 
observance  and  homage  of  others  as  his  due  (ad 
rogo)  ;  who  does  not  wait  for  them  to  offer,  but 
himself  demands  all  this  ;  or  who,  having  right 
to  one  sort  of  observance,  claims  another  to 
which  he  has  no  right.  Thus,  it  was '  arrogance ' 
in  Nebuchadnezzar,  when  he  required  that  all 
men  should  fall  down  before  the  image  which 
he  had  reared.  He,  a  man,  was  claiming  for 
man's  work  the  homage  which  belonged  only 
to  God.  But  one  is  '  presumptuous '  who  takes 
things  to  himself  before  he  has  acquired  any  title 
to  them  (pras  sumo)  ;  as  the  young  man  who 
already  usurps  the  place  of  the  old,  the  learner 
who  speaks  with  the  authority  of  the  teacher. 
By  and  by  all  this  may  very  justly  be  his,  but  it 
is  '  presumption  '  to  anticipate  it  now.  '  Insolent ' 
means  properly  no  more  than  unusual  :  to  act 


vi.    Arrogant,  Presumptuous,  Insolent.   271 

1  insolently '  is  to  act  unusually.  The  offensive 
meaning  which  '  insolent '  has  acquired  rests 
upon  the  sense  that  there  is  a  certain  well- 
understood  rule  of  society,  a  recognized  stan- 
dard of  moral  and  social  behaviour,  to  which 
each  of  its  members  should  conform.  The 
( insolent'  man  is  one  who  violates  this  rule, 
who  breaks  through  this  order,  acting  in  an 
unaccustomed  manner.  The  same  sense  of  the 
orderly  being  also  the  moral,  is  implied  in 
*  irregular ' ;  a  man  of  '  irregular '  is  for  us  a 
man  of  immoral  life  ;  and  yet  more  strongly 
in  Latin,  which  has  but  one  word  (mores)  for 
customs  and  morals. 

Or  consider  the  following  words : '  to  hate,' '  to 
loathe,'  '  to  detest,'  '  to  abhor.'  It  would  be  safe 
to  say  that  our  blessed  Lord  'hated  '  to  see  his 
Father's  house  profaned,  when,  the  zeal  of  that 
house  consuming  Him,  He  drove  forth  in  anger 
the  profaners  from  it  (John  ii.  15);  He  '  loathed  ' 
the  lukewarmness  of  the  Laodiceans,  when  He 
threatened  to  spue  them  out  of  his  mouth  (Rev. 
iii.  16);  He  'detested'  the  hypocrisy  of  the 
Pharisees  and  Scribes,  when  He  affirmed  and 
proclaimed  their  sin,  and  uttered  those  eight 
woes  against  them  (Matt,  xxiii.)  ;  He  '  abhorred  ' 
the  evil  suggestions  of  Satan,  when  He  bade 
the  Tempter  to  get  behind  Him,  shrinking  from 
him  as  one  would  shrink  from  a  hissing  serpent 
in  his  path. 

Sometimes  words  have  no  right  at  all  to  be 
considered  synonyms,  and  yet  are   continually 


272      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect 

used  one  for  the  other  ;  having  through  this 
constant  misemployment  more  need  than  syn- 
onyms themselves  to  be  discriminated.  Thus, 
what  confusion  is  often  made  between  '  genuine  ' 
and  '  authentic  ' ;  what  inaccuracy  exists  in  their 
employment.  And  yet  the  distinction  is  a  very 
plain  one.  A  '  genuine  '  work  is  one  written  by 
the  author  whose  name  it  bears  ;  an  '  authentic ' 
work  is  one  which  relates  truthfully  the  matters 
of  which  it  treats.  For  example,  the  apocryphal 
Gospel  of  St.  Thomas  is  neither  'genuine'  nor 
'  authentic'  It  is  not '  genuine,'  for  St.  Thomas 
did  not  write  it  ;  it  is  not  '  authentic,'  for  its 
contents  are  mainly  fables  and  lies.  The  History 
of  the  Alexandrian  War,  which  passes  under 
Caesar's  name,  is  not  'genuine,'  for  he  did  not 
write  it ;  it  is  '  authentic,'  being  in  the  main  a 
truthful  record  of  the  events  which  it  professes 
to  relate.  Thiers'  History  of  the  French  Empire, 
on  the  contrary,  is  '  genuine,'  for  he  is  certainly 
the  author,  but  very  far  indeed  from  'authentic  '  ; 
while  Thucydides'  History  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War  is  both  'authentic'  and  'genuine.'* 

*  [On  this  matter  see  the  New  English  Dictionary  (s.  v. 
authentic).  It  will  there  be  found  that  the  prevailing  sense 
of  authentic '  is  reliable,  trustworthy,  of  established  credit; 
it  being  often  used  by  writers  on  Christian  Evidences  in 
contradistinction  to  'genuine.'  However, the  Dictionary 
shows  us  that  careful  writers  use  the  word  in  the  sense 
of  'genuine,'  of  undisputed  origin,  not  forged,  or  apo- 
cryphal :  there  is  a  citation  bearing  witness  to  this  mean- 
ing from  Paley.  The  Greek  avdtvriKos  meant  'of  first- 
hand authority,  original.'] 


n.  Preseiit  Value  of  Words.  273 

You  will  observe  that  in  most  of  the  words 
just  adduced,  I  have  sought  to  refer  their  usage 
to  their  etymologies,  to  follow  the  guidance  of 
these,  and  by  the  same  aid  to  trace  the  lines  of 
demarcation  which  divide  them.  For  I  cannot 
but  think  it  an  omission  in  a  very  instructive 
little  volume  upon  synonyms  edited  by  the  late 
Archbishop  Whately,  and  a  partial  diminution 
of  its  usefulness,  that  in  the  valuation  of  words 
reference  is  so  seldom  made  to  their  etymologies, 
the  writer  relying  almost  entirely  on  present 
usage  and  the  tact  and  instinct  of  a  cultivated 
mind  for  the  appreciation  of  them  aright.  The 
accomplished  author  (or  authoress)  of  this  book 
indeed  justifies  this  omission  on  the  ground  that 
a  work  on  synonyms  has  to  do  with  the  present 
relative  value  of  words,  not  with  their  roots  and 
derivations  ;  and,  further,  that  a  reference  to  these 
often  brings  in  what  is  only  a  disturbing  force 
in  the  process,  tending  to  confuse  rather  than 
to  clear.  But  while  it  is  quite  true  that  words 
will  often  ride  very  slackly  at  anchor  on  their 
etymologies,  will  be  borne  hither  and  thither 
by  the  shifting  tides  and  currents  of  usage,  yet 
are  they  for  the  most  part  still  holden  by  them. 
Very  few  have  broken  away  and  drifted  from 
their  moorings  altogether.  A  'novelist,'  or  writer 
of  new  tales  in  the  present  day,  is  very  different 
from  a  '  novelist '  or  upholder  of  new  theories  in 
politics  and  religion,  of  two  hundred  years  ago  ; 
yet  the  idea  of  newness  is  common  to  them  both. 

T 


2  74      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

A  '  naturalist '  was  once  a  denier  of  revealed 
truth,  of  any  but  natural  religion  ;  he  is  now  an 
investigator,  often  a  devout  one,  of  nature  and 
of  her  laws  ;  yet  the  word  has  remained  true  to 
its  etymology  all  the  while.  A  '  methodist '  was 
formerly  a  follower  of  a  certain  '  method '  of 
philosophical  induction,  now  of  a  'method'  in  the 
fulfilment  of  religious  duties ;  but  in  either  case 
1  method,'  or  orderly  progression,  is  the  central 
idea  of  the  word.  Take  other  words  which  have 
changed  or  modified  their  meaning — 'planta- 
tions,' for  instance,  which  were  once  colonies  of 
men  (and  indeed  we  still  '  plant '  a  colony),  but 
are  now  nurseries  of  trees,  and  you  will  find 
the  same  to  hold  good.  '  Ecstasy '  ivas  mad- 
ness ;  it  is  intense  delight  ;  but  has  in  no  wise 
thereby  broken  with  the  meaning  from  which 
it  started,  since  it  is  the  nature  alike  of  madness 
and  of  joy  to  set  men  out  of  and  beside  them- 
selves. 

And  even  when  the  fact  is  not  so  obvious  as 
in  these  cases,  the  etymology  of  a  word  exer- 
cises an  unconscious  influence  upon  its  uses, 
oftentimes  makes  itself  felt  when  least  expected, 
so  that  a  word,  after  seeming  quite  to  have  for- 
gotten, will  after  longest  wanderings  return  to 
it  again.  And  one  main  device  of  great  artists 
in  language,  such  as  would  fain  evoke  the  latent 
forces  of  their  native  tongue,  will  very  often  con- 
sist in  reconnecting  words  by  their  use  of  them 
with  their  original  derivation,  in  not  suffering 


"•  Milton's  Etymologies.  275 

them  to  forget  themselves  and  their  origin, 
though  they  would.  How  often  and  with  what 
signal  effect  does  Milton  compel  a  word  to 
return  to  its  original  source,  •  antiquam  exquirere 
matrem  ' ;  while  yet  how  often  the  fact  that  he 
is  doing  this  passes  even  by  scholars  unobserved.* 


*  Everyone  who  desires,  as  he  reads  M  ilton,  thoroughly 
to  understand  him,  will  do  well  to  be  ever  on  the  watch 
for  such  recalling,  upon  his  part,  of  words  to  their  primitive 
sense ;  and  as  often  as  he  detects,  to  make  accurate  note 
of  it  for  his  own  use,  and,  so  far  as  he  is  a  teacher,  for 
the  use  of  others.  Take  a  few  examples  out  of  many  : 
•afflicted'  {P.  L.  i.  186);  'alarmed'  (P.  L.  iv.  985); 
'  ambition'  (P.  L.  i.  262  ;  S.  A.  247) ;  'astonished'  (P.  L. 
i.  266);  'chaos'  (P.  L.  vi.  55);  'diamond'  (P.  L.  vi. 
364)  ;  '  emblem '  {P.  L.  iv.  703) ;  '  empiric'  {P.  L.  v.  440) ; 
'  engine '  {P.  L.  i.  750) ;  '  entire '  ( =  integer,  P.  L.  ix.  292) ; 
'extenuate'  (P.  L.  x.  645);  'illustrate'  (P.  L.  v.  739); 
'implicit'  {P.  L.  vii.  323)  ;  'indorse'  (P.  R.  iii.  329); 
'infringe'  (P.  P.  i.  62) ;  'mansion'  (Com.  2)  ;  'moment' 
(P.  L.  x.  45)  ;  'oblige'  (P.  L.  ix.  980)  ;  'person'  (P.  L. 
x.  156)  ;  'pomp'  (P.  L.  viii.  61);  'sagacious'  (P.  L.  x. 
281)  ;  'savage'  (P.  L.  iv.  172)  ;  'scene'  (P.  L.  iv.  140;) 
*  secular'  (S.  A.  1707)  ;  '  secure  '  (P.  L.  vi.  638)  ;  '  sedi- 
tious '  (P.  L.  vi.  1 52)  ;  '  transact '  (P.  L.  vi.  286)  ;  '  voluble '' 
(P.  L.  ix.  436).  We  may  note  in  Jeremy  Taylor  a  similar 
reduction  of  words  to  their  origins  ;  thus,  '  insolent '  for 
unusual,  '  metal '  for  mine,  '  irritation '  for  a  making  vain, 
'extant'  for  standing  out  (applied  to  a  bas-relief),  'con- 
trition' for  bruising  ('the  contrition  of  the  serpent'), 
'probable'  for  worthy  of  approval  ('  a  probable  doctor'). 
The  author  of  the  excellent  Lexique  de  la  Langne  de  Cor- 
neille  claims  the  same  merit  for  him  and  for  his  great 
contemporaries  or  immediate  successors  :  Faire  rendre 
aux  mots  tout  ce  qu'ils  peuvent  donner,  en  varier  habile- 

T  2 


2j6      On  tlie  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

Moreover,  even  if  all  this  were  not  so,  yet  the 
past  history  of  a  word,  a  history  that  must 
needs  start  from  its  derivation,  how  soon  soever 
this  may  be  left  behind,  can  hardly  be  disre- 
garded, when  we  are  seeking  to  ascertain  its  pre- 
sent value.  What  Barrow  says  is  quite  true, 
that  '  knowing  the  primitive  meaning  of  words 
can  seldom  or  never  determine  their  meaning 
anywhere,  they  often  in  common  use  declining 
from  it '  ;  but  though  it  cannot  '  determine,'  it 
can  as  little  be  omitted  or  forgotten,  when  this 
determination  is  being  sought.  A  man  may  be 
wholly  different  now  from  what  once  he  was  ; 
yet  not  the  less  to  know  his  antecedents  is  need- 
ful, before  we  can  ever  perfectly  understand  his 


ment  les  acceptions  et  les  nuances,  les  ramener  a  leur 
origine,  les  retremper  frequemment  a  leur  source  etymo- 
logique,  constituait  un  des  secrets  principaux  des  grands 
ecrivains  du  dix-septieme  siecle.  It  is  this  putting  of  old 
words  in  a  new  light,  and  to  a  new  use,  though  that  will 
be  often  the  oldest  of  all,  on  which  Horace  sets  so  high  a 
store  : 

Dixeris  egregie,  notum  si  callida  verbum 
Reddiderit  junctura  novum ; 

and  not  less  Montaigne  :  '  The  handling  and  utterance  of 
fine  wits  is  that  which  sets  off  a  language  ;  not  so  much 
by  innovating  it,  as  by  putting  it  to  more  vigorous  and 
various  service,  and  by  straining,  bending,  and  adapting 
it  to  this.  They  do  not  create  words,  but  they  enrich 
their  own,  and  give  them  weight  and  signification  by  the 
uses  they  put  them  to.' 


7u  Felicitate,  Congratulate.  277 

present  self;    and  the  same  holds  good   with 
words. 

There  is  a  moral  gain  which  synonyms  will 
sometimes  yield  us,  enabling  us,  as  they  do, 
to  say  exactly  what  we  intend,  without  exag- 
gerating or  putting  more  into  our  speech  than 
we  feel  in  our  hearts,  allowing  us  to  be  at  once 
courteous  and  truthful.  Such  moral  advantage 
there  is,  for  example,  in  the  choice  which  we 
have  between  the  words  '  to  felicitate '  and  '  to 
congratulate,'  for  the  expressing  of  our  senti- 
ments and  wishes  in  regard  of  the  good  fortune 
that  may  happen  to  others.  To  '  felicitate ' 
another  is  to  wish  him  happiness,  without 
affirming  that  his  happiness  is  also  ours.  Thus, 
out  of  that  general  goodwill  with  which  we 
ought  to  regard  all,  we  might  '  felicitate '  one 
almost  a  stranger  to  us ;  nay,  more,  I  can 
honestly  '  felicitate '  one  on  his  appointment  to 
a  post,  or  attainment  of  an  honour,  even  though 
I  may  not  consider  him  the  fittest  to  have 
obtained  it,  though  I  should  have  been  glad  if 
another  had  done  so  ;  I  can  desire  and  hope, 
that  is,  that  it  may  bring  all  joy  and  happiness 
to  him.  But  I  could  not,  without  a  violation 
of  truth,  •  congratulate '  him,  or  that  stranger 
whose  prosperity  awoke  no  lively  delight  in  my 
heart ;  for  when  I '  congratulate  '  a  person  (con- 
gratulor),  I  declare  that  I  am  sharer  in  his  joy, 
that  what  has  rejoiced  him  has  rejoiced  also  me. 
We   have   all,  I    dare    say,    felt,   even   without 


278      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


having   analysed    the    distinction    between    the 
words,  that  '  congratulate  '  is  a  far  heartier  word 
than  'felicitate,'  and  one  with  which   it  much 
better  becomes  us  to  welcome  the  good  fortune 
of  a  friend  ;  and  the  analysis,  as  you  perceive, 
perfectly  justifies  the  feeling.    '  Felicitations  '  are 
little  better  than  compliments  ;  '  congratulations ' 
are  the  expression  of  a  genuine  sympathy  and  joy. 
Let  me  illustrate  the  importance  of  synony- 
mous distinctions  by  another  example,  by  the 
words,  *  to  invent '  and  '  to  discover ' ;  or  '  inven- 
tion 'and  'discovery.'     How  slight  may  seem 
to  us  the  distinction  between  them,  even  if  we 
see  any  at  all.     Yet  try  them  a  little  closer,  try 
them,  which  is  the  true  proof,  by  aid  of  exam- 
ples, and  you  will  perceive  that  they  can  by  no 
means  be  indifferently  used  ;  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  great  truth  lies   at    the    root    of  their 
distinction.     Thus  we  speak  of  the  '  invention  ' 
of  printing,  of  the  '  discovery  '  of  America.  Shift 
these    words,   and    speak,   for    instance,    of  the 
'  invention  '  of  America  ;  you  feel  at  once  how 
unsuitable  the  language  is.    And  why  ?    Because 
Columbus  did  not  make  that  to  be,  which  before 
him  had  not  been.     America  was  there,  before 
he  revealed  it  to  European  eyes  ;  but  that  which 
before  was,  he  shozved  to  be  ;  he  withdrew  the  veil 
which  hitherto  had  concealed  it ;  he '  discovered  ' 
it.     So  too  we  speak  of  Newton  '  discovering ' 
the  law  of  gravitation  ;  he  drew  aside  the  veil 
whereby  men's  eyes  were  hindered  from  per- 


vi.  Invention,  Discovery.  279 

cciving  it,  but  the  law  had  existed  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  and  would  have  existed 
whether  he  or  any  other  man  had  traced  it  or 
no  ;  neither  was  it  in  any  way  affected  by  the 
discovery  of  it  which  he  had  made.  But  Guten- 
berg, or  whoever  else  it  may  be  to  whom  the 
honour  belongs,  '  invented '  printing  ;  he  made 
something  to  be,  which  hitherto  was  not.  In 
like  manner  Harvey  '  discovered  '  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  ;  but  Watt  '  invented  '  the  steam- 
engine  ;  and  we  speak,  with  a  true  distinction, 
of  the  '  inventions  '  of  Art,  the  '  discoveries  '  of 
Science.  In  the  very  highest  matters  of  all,  it 
is  deeply  important  that  we  be  aware  of  and 
observe  the  distinction.  In  religion  there  have 
been  many  '  discoveries,'  but  (in  true  religion  I 
mean)  no  '  inventions.'  Many  discoveries — but 
God  in  each  case  the  discoverer  ;  He  draws 
aside  the  veils,  one  veil  after  another,  that  have 
hidden  Him  from  men  ;  the  discovery  or  reve- 
lation is  from  Himself,  for  no  man  by  searching 
has  found  out  God  ;  and  therefore,  wherever 
anything  offers  itself  as  an  '  invention  '  in  matters 
of  religion,  it  proclaims  itself  a  lie,— as  are  all 
self-devised  worships,  all  religions  which  man 
projects  from  his  own  heart.  Just  that  is  known 
of  God  which  He  is  pleased  to  make  known, 
and  no  more  ;  and  men's  recognizing  or  refusing 
to  recognize  in  no  way  affects  it.  They  may 
deny  or  may  acknowledge  Him,  but  He  con- 
tinues the  same. 


2  So      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


As  involving  in  like  manner  a  distinction 
which  cannot  safely  be  lost  sight  of,  how  im- 
portant the  difference,  the  existence  of  which  is 
asserted  by  our  possession    of  the   two  words, 

•  to  apprehend '  and  *  to  comprehend,'  with  their 
substantives  '  apprehension  '  and  •  comprehen- 
sion.' For  indeed  we  '  apprehend  '  many  truths, 
which  we  do  not  'comprehend.'  The  great 
mysteries  of  our  faith— the  doctrine,  for  in- 
stance, of  the  Holy  Trinity,  we  lay  hold  upon 
it,  we  hang  on  it,  our  souls  live  by  it ;  but  we 
do  not  «  ttwzprehcnd  '  it,  that  is,  we  do  not  take 
it  all  in  ;  for  it  is  a  necessary  attribute  of  God 
that  He  is  incomprehensible ;  if  He  were  not  so, 
either  He  would  not  be  God,  or  the  Being  that 
comprehended  Him  would  be  God  also  (Matt. 
xi.  27).  But  it  also  belongs  to  the  idea  of  God 
that    He    may   be   '  tf/prehended,'    though    not 

*  ttwzprehended,'  by  his  reasonable  creatures  ; 
He  has  made  them  to  know  Him,  though  not 
to  know  Him  all,  to  'tf/prehend,'  though  not  to 
1  «w/prehend '  Him.  We  may  transfer  with 
profit  the  same  distinction  to  matters  not  quite 
so  solemn.  Thus  I  read  Goldsmith's  Traveller, 
or  one  of  Gay's  Fables,  and  I  feel  that  I  '  com- 
prehend '  it ; — I  do  not  believe,  that  is,  that 
there  was  anything  stirring  in  the  poet's  mind 
or  intention,  which  I  have  not  in  the  reading 
reproduced  in  my  own.  But  I  read  Hamlet,  or 
King  Lear :  here  I  '  apprehend  '  much  ;  I  have 
wondrous  glimpses  of  the  poet's  intention  and 


n.  Apprehend,  Comprehend.  281 

aim  ;  but  I  do  not  for  an  instant  suppose  that  I 
have  '  comprehended,'  taken  in,  that  is,  all  that 
was  in  his  mind  in  the  writing  ;  or  that  his 
purpose  does  not  stretch  in  manifold  directions 
far  beyond  the  range  of  my  vision  ;  and  I  am 
sure  there  are  few  who  would  not  shrink  from 
affirming,  at  least  if  they  at  all  realized  the 
force  of  the  words  they  were  using,  that  they 
'  comprehended  '  Shakespeare  ;  however  much 
they  may  '  apprehend  '  in  him. 

How  often  'opposite'  and  'contrary'  are 
used  as  if  there  was  no  difference  between  them, 
and  yet  there  is  a  most  essential  one,  one  which 
perhaps  we  may  best  express  by  saying  that 
'opposites  '  complete,  while  'contraries  '  exclude 
one  another.  Thus  the  most  '  opposite '  moral 
or  mental  characteristics  may  meet  in  one  and 
the  same  person,  while  to  say  that  the  most 
'contrary'  did  so,  would  be  manifestly  absurd  ; 
for  example,  a  soldier  may  be  at  once  prudent 
and  bold,  for  these  are  opposites  ;  he  could  not 
be  at  once  prudent  and  rash,  for  these  are  con- 
traries. We  may  love  and  fear  at  the  same 
time  and  the  same  person ;  we  pray  in  the 
Litany  that  we  may  love  and  dread  God,  the 
two  being  opposites,  and  thus  the  complements 
of  one  another  ;  but  to  pray  that  we  might  love 
and  hate  would  be  as  illogical  as  it  would  be 
impious,  for  these  are  contraries,  and  could  no 
more  co-exist  together  than  white  and  black, 
hot  and  cold,  in  the  same  subject  at  the  same 


2S2      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

time.  Or  to  take  another  illustration,  sweet  and 
sour  are  'opposites,' sweet  and  bitter  are  '  con- 
traries.'*  It  will  be  seen  then  that  there  is 
always  a  certain  relation  between  'opposites'; 
they  unfold  themselves,  though  in  different 
directions,  from  the  same  root,  as  the  positive 
and  negative  forces  of  electricity,  and  in  their 
very  opposition  uphold  and  sustain  one  another  ; 
while  •  contraries  '  encounter  one  another  from 
quarters  quite  diverse,  and  one  only  subsists  in 
the  exact  degree  that  it  puts  out  of  working  the 
other.  Surely  this  distinction  cannot  be  an  un- 
important one  either  in  the  region  of  ethics  or 
elsewhere. 

It  will  happen  continually,  that  rightly  to 
distinguish  between  two  words  will  throw  a 
flood  of  light  upon  some  controversy  in  which 
they  play  a  principal  part,  nay,  may  virtually 
put  an  end  to  that  controversy  altogether.  Thus 
when  Hobbes,  with  a  true  instinct,  would  have 
laid  deep  the  foundations  of  atheism  and  de- 
spotism together,  resolving  all  right  into  might, 
and  not  merely  robbing  men,  if  he  could,  of  the 
power,  but  denying  to  them  the  duty,  of  obey- 
ing God  rather  than  man,  his  sophisms  could 
stand  only  so  long  as  it  was  not  perceived  that 
•  compulsion  '  and  '  obligation,'  with  which  he 
juggled,  conveyed  two  ideas  perfectly  distinct, 
indeed  disparate,  in  kind.    Those  sophisms  of  his 


•  See  Coleridge,  Church  and  Slate,  p.  18. 


vi.  Instruction,  Education.  283 

collapsed  at  once,  so  soon  as  it  was  perceived 
that  what  pertained  to  one  had  been  transferred 
to  the  other  by  a  mere  confusion  of  terms  and 
cunning  sleight  of  hand,  the  former  being  a 
physical,  the  latter  a  moral,  necessity. 

There  is  indeed  no  such  fruitful  source  of 
confusion  and  mischief  as  this — two  words  are 
tacitly  assumed  as  equivalent,  and  therefore 
exchangeable,  and  then  that  which  may  be 
assumed,  and  with  truth,  of  one,  is  assumed 
also  of  the  other,  of  which  it  is  not  true.  Thus, 
for  instance,  it  often  is  with  '  instruction '  and 
'  education.'  Cannot  we  '  instruct '  a  child,  it  is 
asked,  cannot  we  teach  it  geography,  or  arith- 
metic, or  grammar,  quite  independently  of  the 
Catechism,  or  even  of  the  Scriptures  ?  No 
doubt  you  may ;  but  can  you  'educate,'  without 
bringing  moral  and  spiritual  forces  to  bear  upon 
the  mind  and  affections  of  the  child  ?  And  you 
must  not  be  permitted  to  transfer  the  admissions 
which  we  freely  make  in  regard  of  '  instruction,' 
as  though  they  also  held  good  in  respect  of 
'  education.'  For  what  is  'education  '?  Is  it  a 
furnishing  of  a  man  from  without  with  know- 
ledge and  facts  and  information  ?  or  is  it  a 
drawing  forth  from  within  and  a  training  of 
the  spirit,  of  the  true  humanity  which  is  latent 
in  him?  Is  the  process  of  education  the  filling 
of  the  child's  mind,  as  a  cistern  is  filled  with 
waters  brought  in  bucKets  from  some  other 
source  ?     or  the  opening   up  for  that  child   of 


284      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        ^. 

fountains  which  are  already  there?  Now  if  we 
give  any  heed  to  the  word  '  education,'  and  to 
the  voice  which  speaks  therein,  we  shall  not 
lon<r  be  in  doubt.  Education  must  educe, 
being  from  '  educare,'  which  is  but  another  form 
of  '  educere ' ;  and  that  is  to  draw  out,  and 
not  to  put  in.  '  To  draw  out '  what  is  in  the 
child,  the  immortal  spirit  which  is  there,  this  is 
the  end  of  education  ;  and  so  much  the  word 
declares.  The  putting  in  is  indeed  most  need- 
ful, that  is,  the  child  must  be  instructed  as  well 
as  educated,  and  '  instruction  '  means  furnish- 
ing ;  but  not  instructed  instead  of  educated. 
He  must  first  have  powers  awakened  in  him, 
measures  of  value  given  him  ;  and  then  he  will 
know  how  to  deal  with  the  facts  of  this  outward 
world  ;  then  instruction  in  these  will  profit  him  ; 
but  not  without  the  higher  training,  still  less  as 
a  substitute  for  it. 

It  has  occasionally  happened  that  the  ques- 
tion which  out  of  two  apparent  synonyms 
should  be  adopted  in  some  important  state- 
document  has  been  debated  with  no  little 
earnestness  and  passion  ;  as  at  the  great  English 
Revolution  of  16S8,  when  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  were  at  issue  whether  it  should  be 
declared  of  James  II.  that  he  had  'abdicated,' 
or  had  '  deserted,'  the  throne.  This  might  seem 
at  first  sight  a  mere  strife  about  words,  and  yet, 
in  reality,  serious  constitutional  questions  were 
involved  in  the  debate.    The  Commons  insisted 


ru  Abdicate,  Desert  285 

on  the  word  '  abdicated,'  not  as  wishing  to 
imply  that  in  any  act  of  the  late  king  there  had 
been  an  official  renunciation  of  the  crown,  which 
would  have  been  manifestly  untrue  ;  but  because 
1  abdicated  '  in  their  minds  alone  expressed  the 
fact  that  James  had  so  borne  himself  as  virtually 
to  have  entirely  renounced,  disowned,  and  relin- 
quished the  crown,  to  have  forfeited  and  sepa- 
rated himself  from  it,  and  from  any  right  to  it 
for  ever  ;  while  '  deserted '  would  have  seemed 
to  leave  room  and  an  opening  for  a  return, 
which  they  were  determined  to  declare  for  ever 
excluded  ;  as  were  it  said  of  a  husband  that 
he  had  '  deserted  '  his  wife,  or  of  a  soldier  that 
he  had  '  deserted '  his  colours,  this  language 
would  imply  not  only  that  he  might,  but  that 
he  was  bound  to  return.  The  speech  of  Lord 
Somers  on  the  occasion  is  a  masterly  specimen 
of  synonymous  discrimination,  and  an  example 
of  the  uses  in  highest  matters  of  state  to  which 
it  may  be  turned.  As  little  was  it  a  mere  verbal 
struggle  when,  at  the  restoration  a  good  many 
years  ago  of  our  interrupted  relations  with 
Persia,  Lord  Palmerston  insisted  that  the  Shah 
should  address  the  Queen  of  England  not  as 
'  Maleketh '  but  as  '  Padischah,'  refusing  to  re- 
ceive letters  which  wanted  this  superscription. 
Let  me  press  upon  you,  in  conclusion,  some 
few  of  the  many  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
the  habit  of  distinguishing  synonyms.  These 
advantages  we  might  presume  to  be  many,  even 


2S6      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lbct. 

though  we  could  not  ourselves  perceive  them  ; 
for  how  often  do  the  greatest  masters  of  style  in 
every  tongue,  perhaps  none  so  often  as  Cicero, 
the  greatest  of  all,*  pause  to   discriminate  be- 


*  Thus  he  distinguishes  between  'voluntas'  and  'cu- 
piditas';  'cautio'  and  '  metus  '  (7  use.  iv.  6) ;  'gaudium,' 
'  laetitia,'  'voluptas'  (Tuse.  iv.  6;  Fin.  ii.  4);  'prudentia' 
and  'sapientia'  {Off.  i.  43);  'caritas'  and  'amor'  (De 
Part.  Or.  25);  'ebrius'  and  '  ebriosus,'  'iracundus'  and 
'  iratus,'  'anxietas'  and  'angor'  (Tuse.  iv.  12)  ;  'vitium,' 
'morbus,'  and  'segrotatio'  (Tuse.  iv.  13);  'labor'  and 
'  dolor '( Tuse.  ii.  15)  ;  'furor'  and  'insania'  ('Fuse.  iii.  5)  ; 
'malitia'  and  '  vitiositas '  (Tuse.  iv.  15);  'doctus'  and 
'  peritus '  (Off.  i.  3).  Quintilian  also  often  bestows  atten- 
tion on  synonyms,  observing  well  (vi.  3.  17):  '  Pluribus 
nominibus  in  eadem  re  vulgo  utimur  ;  quae  tamen  si  didu- 
cas,  suam  quandam  propriam  vim  ostendent ; '  he  adduces 
'  salsum,'  '  urbanum,'  'facetum';  and  elsewhere  (v.  3) 
'rumor'  and  'fama'  are  discriminated  happily  by  him. 
Among  Church  writers  Augustine  is  a  frequent  and  suc- 
cessful discriminator  of  words.  Thus  he  separates  off 
from  one  another  'flagitium'  and  'facinus'  (De  Doct. 
Christ,  iii.  10)  ;  'aemulatio'  and  'invidia'  (Expl.  ad  Gal. 
x.  20) ;  '  arrha'  and  '  pignus '  (Serin.  23.  8, 9)  ;  '  studiosus ' 
and  '  curiosus '  (De  (/til.  Cred.  9)  ;  '  sapientia '  and 
'scientia'  (De  Div.  Quces.  2,  qu.  2);  'senecta'  and 
'senium'  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  70.  18)  ;  'schisma'  and  'hasre- 
sis '  (Con.  Cresc.  2.  7)  ;  with  many  more  (see  my  Synonyms 
of  the  N.  T.  Preface,  p.  xvi).  Among  the  merits  of  the 
Grimms'  Worterbuch  is  the  care  which  they,  and  those 
who  have  taken  up  their  work,  bestow  on  the  discrimina- 
tion of  synonyms  ;  distinguishing,  for  example,  '  degen ' 
and  'schwert';  'feld,'  'acker'  and  '  heide  ' ;  '  aar  '  and 
'adler';  'antlitz'  and  'angesicht' ;  'kelch,'  'becher'  and 
'glas' ;  '  frau'  and  '  weib' ;  'butter,'  'schmalz'and  'anke' ; 
'  kopf'  and  'haupt';  'klug'  and  'weise';  'geben'  and 
'  schenken '  .;  '  heirath  '  and  '  ehe.1 


vi.  Discernment,  Discretion.  287 

tween  the  words  they  are  using  ;  how  much  care 
and  labour,  how  much  subtlety  of  thought,  they 
have  counted  well  bestowed  on  the  operation  ; 
how  much  importance  they  avowedly  attach  to 
it ;  not  to  say  that  their  works,  even  where 
they  do  not  intend  it,  will  afford  a  continual 
lesson  in  this  respect  :  a  great  writer  merely  in 
the  precision  and  accuracy  with  which  he  em- 
ploys words  will  always  be  exercising  us  in 
synonymous  distinction.  But  the  advantages  of 
attending  to  synonyms  need  not  be  taken  on 
trust ;  they  are  evident.  How  large  a  part  of 
true  wisdom  it  is  to  be  able  to  distinguish  be- 
tween things  that  differ,  things  seemingly,  but 
not  really,  alike,  is  very  remarkably  attested 
by  our  words  'discernment'  and  'discretion'; 
which  are  now  used  as  equivalent,  the  first  to 
'  insight,'  the  second  to  '  prudence ' ;  while  yet 
in  their  earlier  usage,  and  according  to  their 
etymology,  being  both  from  '  discerno,'  they 
signify  the  power  of  so  seeing  things  that  in  the 
seeing  we  distinguish  and  separate  them  one 
from  another.*     Such  were  originally  '  discern- 

*  L'esprit  consiste  a  connaitre  la  ressemblance  des 
choses  diverses,  et  la  difference  des  choses  semblables 
(Montesquieu).  Saint-Evremond  says  of  a  reunion  of 
the  Precieuses  at  the  Hotel  Rambouillet,  with  a  raillery 
which  is  not  meant  to  be  disrespectful — 

'  La  se  font  distinguer  les  fiertes  des  rigueurs, 
Les  dedains  des  mepris,  les  tourments  des  langueurs  ; 
On  y  sait  demeler  la  cramte  et  les  alarmes, 
Discerner  les  attraits,  les  appas  et  les  charmes.' 


2  88      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lect. 

ment '  and  '  discretion,'  and  such  in  great 
measure  they  are  still.  And  in  words  is  a 
material  ever  at  hand  on  which  to  train  the 
spirit  to  a  skilfulness  in  this  ;  on  which  to  exer- 
cise its  sagacity  through  the  habit  of  distin- 
guishing there  where  it  would  be  so  easy  to 
confound.*  Nor  is  this  habit  of  discrimination 
only  valuable  as  a  part  of  our  intellectual  train- 
ing ;  but  what  a  positive  increase  is  it  of  mental 
wealth  when  we  have  learned  to  discern  between 
things  which  really  differ,  and  have  made  the 


•  I  will  suggest  here  a  few  pairs  or  larger  groups  of 
words  on  which  those  who  are  willing  to  exercise  them- 
selves in  the  distinction  of  synonyms  might  perhaps 
profitably  exercise  their  skill ; — « fame,' '  popularity,' '  cele- 
brity,' 'reputation,'  'renown'; — 'misfortune,'  'calamity,' 
'  disaster  '  ;  — '  impediment,'  '  obstruction,'  '  obstacle,' 
'  hindrance  '  ; — '  temerity,'  '  audacity,'  '  boldness  ' ; — '  re- 
buke,' '  reprimand,'  '  censure,'  '  blame ' ; — '  adversary,' 
'  opponent,' '  antagonist,' '  enemy ' ; — '  rival,'  '  competitor' ; 
— 'affluence,'  'opulence,'  'abundance,'  'redundance'; — 
'  conduct," behaviour,'  'demeanour,'  'bearing'; — 'execra- 
tion,' 'malediction,'  'imprecation,'  'anathema'; — 'avari- 
cious,' 'covetous,'  'miserly,'  'niggardly' ;—' hypothesis,1 
'theory,'  'system'  (see  De  Quincey,  Lit.  Rem.  American 
ed.  p.  229) ; — 'masculine,'  'manly'; — 'effeminate,'  'femi- 
nine ' ; — '  womanly,'  '  womanish  ' ; — '  malicious,'  '  malig- 
nant ' ; — '  savage,' '  barbarous,' '  fierce,' '  cruel,' '  inhuman ' ; 
— 'low,'  'mean,'  'abject,'  'base'; — 'to  chasten,'  'to 
punish,'  'to  chastise'; — 'to  exile,'  'to  banish'; — 'to 
declare,'  'to  disclose,'  'to  reveal,'  'to  divulge'; — 'to 
defend,'  'to  protect,'  'to  shelter'; — 'to  excuse,'  'to 
palliate ' ; — '  to  compel,'  '  to  coerce,'  '  to  constrain,'  '  to 
force.' 


vi.  Gains  to  be  made.  2  So, 

distinctions  between  them  permanently  our  own 
in  the  only  way  whereby  they  can  be  made 
secure,  that  is,  by  assigning  to  each  its  appro- 
priate word  and  peculiar  sign. 

In  the  effort  to  trace  lines  of  demarcation 
you  may  little  by  little  be  drawn  into  the  heart 
of  subjects  the  most  instructive  ;  for  only  as  you 
have  thoroughly  mastered  a  subject,  and  all 
which  is  most  characteristic  about  it,  can  you 
hope  to  trace  these  lines  with  accuracy  and 
success.  Thus  a  Roman  of  the  higher  classes 
might  bear  four  names  :  '  praenomen,' '  nomen,' 
'cognomen,'  'agnomen';  almost  always  bore 
three.  You  will  know  something  of  the  political 
and  family  life  of  Rome  when  you  can  tell  the 
exact  story  of  each  of  these,  and  the  precise  differ- 
ence between  them.  He  will  not  be  altogether 
ignorant  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  the  clamps 
which  in  those  ages  bound  society  together,  who 
has  learned  exactly  to  distinguish  between  a 
'  fief  and  a  '  benefice.'  He  will  have  obtained 
a  firm  grasp  on  some  central  facts  of  theology 
who  can  exactly  draw  out  the  distinction  be- 
tween '  reconciliation,'  '  propitiation,'  '  atone- 
ment,' as  used  in  the  New  Testament ;  of 
Church  history,  who  can  trace  the  difference 
between  a  '  schism '  and  a  '  heresy.'  One  who 
has  learned  to  discriminate  between  'detraction  ' 
and  '  slander,'  as  Barrow  has  done  before  him,* 


*  *  Slander  involveth  an  imputation  of  falsehood,  but 

U 


290      O/i  the  Distinction  of  Words.       lkt, 

or  between  '  emulation  '  and  '  envy,'  in  which 
South  has  excellently  shown  him  the  way,* 
or  between  '  avarice '  and  '  covetousness,'  with 
Cowley,  will  have  made  no  unprofitable  excur- 
sion into  the  region  of  ethics. 

How  effectual  a  help,  moreover,  will  it  prove 
to  the  writing  of  a  good  English  style,  if  instead 
of  choosing  almost  at  hap-hazard  from  a  group 
of  words  which  seem  to  us  one  about  as  fit  for 
our  purpose  as  another,  we  at  once  know  which, 
and  which  only,  we  ought  in  the  case  before  us 
to  employ,  which  will  prove  the  exact  vesture  of 
our  thoughts.  It  is  the  first  characteristic  of  a 
well-dressed  man  that  his  clothes  fit  him  :  they 
are  not  too  small  and  shrunken  here,  too  large 
and  loose  there.  Now  it  is  precisely  such  a 
prime  characteristic  of  a  good  style,  that  the 
words  fit  close  to  the  thoughts.  They  will  not 
be  too  big  here,  hanging  like  a  giant's  robe  on 
the  limbs  of  a  dwarf;  nor  too  small  there,  as  a 
boy's  garments  into  which  the  man  has  pain- 
fully and  ridiculously  thrust  himself.  You  do 
not,  as  you  read,  feel  in  one  place  that  the 
writer  means  more  than  he  has  succeeded  in 
saying  ;  in  another  that  he  has  said  more  than 


detraction  may  be  couched  in  truth,  and  clothed  in  fair 
language.  It  is  a  poison  often  infused  in  sweet  liquor, 
and  ministered  in  a  golden  cup.'  Compare  Spenser,  Fairy 
Queen,  5.  12.  28-43. 

*  Sermons,  1737,  vol.  v.  p.  403.     His  words  are  quoted 
In  my  Select  Glossary,  s.  v.  '  Eurilation.' 


n.  Words  left  unemployed.  291 

he  means  ;  in  a  third  something  beside  what  his 
precise  intention  was  ;  in  a  fourth  that  he  has 
failed  to  convey  any  meaning  at  all  ;  and  all 
this  from  a  lack  of  skill  in  employing  the  instru- 
ment of  language,  of  precision  in  knowing  what 
words  would  be  the  exactest  correspondents  and 
aptest  exponents  of  his  thoughts.* 

What  a  wealth  of  words  in  almost  every 
language  lies  inert  and  unused  ;  and  certainly 
not  fewest  in  our  own.  How  much  of  what 
might  be  as  current  coin  among  us,  is  shut  up 
in  the  treasure-house  of  a  few  classical  authors, 
or  is  never  to  be  met  at  all  but  in  the  columns 
of  the  dictionary,  we  meanwhile,  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  riches,  condemning  ourselves  to  a  volun- 
tary poverty  ;  and  often,  with  tasks  the  most 
delicate  and  difficult  to  accomplish, — for  surely 
the  clothing  of  thought  in  its  most  appropriate 
garment  of  words  is  such, — needlessly  depriving 
ourselves  of  a  large  portion  of  the  helps  at  our 
command  ;  like  some  workman  who,  bemg  fur- 
nished for  an  operation  that  will  challenge 
all  his  skill  with  a  dozen  different  tools,  each 
adapted  for  its  own  special  purpose,  should  in 


*  La  propriete  des  termes  est  le  caractere  distinctif 
des  grands  ecrivains  ;  c'est  par  la  que  leur  style  est  tou- 
jours  au  niveau  de  leur  sujet ;  c'est  a  cette  qualite"  qu'on 
reconnatt  le  vrai  talent  d'ecrire,  et  non  a  Part  futile  de 
de'guiser  par  un  vain  colons  les  idees  communes.  So 
D'Alembert ;  but  Caesar  long  before  had  said,  Delectus 
verborum,  eloquentias  origo. 

D  2 


292      On  the  Distinction  of  Words.        lbct. 

his  indolence  and  self-conceit  persist  in  using 
only  one ;  doing  coarsely  what  might  have 
been  done  finely  ;  or  leaving  altogether  undone 
that  which,  with  such  assistances,  was  quite 
within  his  reach.  And  thus  it  comes  to  pass 
that  in  the  common  intercourse  of  life,  often  too 
in  books,  a  certain  restricted  number  of  words 
are  worked  almost  to  death,  employed  in  season 
and  out  of  season — a  vast  multitude  meanwhile 
being  rarely,  if  at  all,  called  to  render  the  ser- 
vice which  they  could  render  far  better  than  any 
Dther  ;  so  rarely,  indeed,  that  little  by  little  they 
slip  out  of  sight  and  are  forgotten  nearly  or 
altogether.  And  then,  perhaps,  at  some  later 
d?y,  when  their  want  is  felt,  the  ignorance  into 
which  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  fall,  of  the 
resources  offered  by  the  language  to  satisfy  new 
demands,  sends  us  abroad  in  search  of  outlandish 
substitutes  for  words  which  we  already  possess 
at  home.*  It  was,  no  doubt,  to  avoid  so  far  as 
possible  such  an  impoverishment  of  the  lan- 
guage which  he  spoke  and  wrote,  for  the  feeding 
of  his  own  speech  with  words  capable  of  serving 
him  well,  but  in  danger  of  falling  quite  out  of 
his  use,  that  the  great  Lord  Chatham  had  Bailey's 
Dictionary,  the  best  of  his  time,  twice  read  to 
him  from  one  end  to  the  other. 


•  Thus  I  observe  in  modern  French  the  barbarous 
•derailler,'  to  get  off  the  rail;  and  this  while  it  only 
tieeded  to  recall  'derayer'  from  the  oblivion  into  which 
it  had  been  allowed  to  fall. 


n.       Truth  and  Falsehood  of  Words.     293 

And  let  us  not  suppose  the  power  of  exactly 
saying  what  we  mean,  and  neither  more  nor 
less  than  we  mean,  to  be  merely  a  graceful 
mental  accomplishment.  It  is  indeed  this,  and 
perhaps  there  is  no  power  so  surely  indicative 
of  a  high  and  accurate  training  of  the  intel- 
lectual faculties.  But  it  is  much  more  than 
this  :  it  has  a  moral  value  as  well.  It  is  nearly 
allied  to  morality,  inasmuch  as  it  is  nearly  con- 
nected with  truthfulness.  Every  man  who  has 
himself  in  any  degree  cared  for  the  truth,  and 
occupied  himself  in  seeking  it,  is  more  or  less 
aware  how  much  of  the  falsehood  in  the  world 
passes  current  under  the  concealment  of  words, 
how  many  strifes  and  controversies, 

4  Which  feed  the  simple,  and  offend  the  wise,' 

find  all  or  nearly  all  the  fuel  that  maintains 
them  in  words  carelessly  or  dishonestly  em- 
ployed. And  when  a  man  has  had  any  actual 
experience  of  this,  and  at  all  perceived  how  far 
this  mischief  reaches,  he  is  sometimes  almost 
tempted  to  say  with  Shakespeare,  '  Out,  idle 
words,  servants  to  shallow  fools  ' ;  to  adopt  the 
saying  of  his  clown,  '  Words  are  grown  so  false 
I  am  loathe  to  prove  reason  with  them.'  He 
cannot,  however,  forego  their  employment ;  not 
to  say  that  he  will  presently  perceive  that  this 
falseness  of  theirs  whereof  he  accuses  them,  this 
cheating  power,  is  not  of  their  proper  use,  but 
only  of  their  abuse  ;  he  will  see  that,  however 


294      On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 


LKCT. 


they  may  have  been  enlisted  in  the  service  of  lies, 
they  are  yet  of  themselves  most  true ;  and  that, 
where  the  bane  is,  there  the  antidote  should  be 
sought  as  well.  If  Goethe's  Faust  denounces 
words  and  the  falsehood  of  words,  it  is  by  the 
aid  of  words  that  he  does  it.  Ask  then  words 
what  they  mean,  that  you  may  deliver  your- 
selves, that  you  may  help  to  deliver  others,  from 
the  tyranny  of  words,  and,  to  use  Baxter's  ex- 
cellent phrase,  from  the  strife  of  ■  word-warriors.' 
Learn  to  distinguish  between  them,  for  you 
have  the  authority  of  Hooker,  that  '  the  mixture 
of  those  things  by  speech,  which  by  nature  are 
divided,  is  the  mother  of  all  error.'*  And 
although  I  cannot  promise  you  that  the  study 
of  synonyms,  or  the  acquaintance  with  deriva- 
tions, or  any  other  knowledge  but  the  very 
highest  knowledge  of  all,  will  deliver  you  from 
the  temptation  to  misuse  this  or  any  other  gift 
of  God — a  temptation  always  lying  so  near  us 
— yet  I  am  sure  that  these  studies  rightly  pur- 
sued will  do  much  in  leading  us  to  stand  in 
awe  of  this  gift  of  speech,  and  to  tremble  at  the 
thought  of  turning  it  to  any  other  than  those 
worthy  ends  for  which  God  has  endowed  us 
with  a  faculty  so  divine. 

*  See  on  all  this  matter  in  Locke's  Essay  on  Human 
Understanding,  chapters  9,  10  and  1 1  of  the  3rd  book, 
certainly  the  most  remarkable  in  the  Essay  ;  they  bear 
the  following  titles  :  Of  the  Imperfection  of  Words,  Of 
the  Abuse  of  Words,  Of  the  Remedies  of  the  Imperfection 
and  Abuse  of  Words. 


m.  Implements  of  Education.  295 


LECTURE     VII. 
THE  SCHOOLMASTER'S   USE  OF  WORDS. 

AT  the  Great  Exhibition  of  185 1,  there  might 
be  seen  a  collection,  probably  by  far  the 
completest  which  had  ever  been  got  together,  of 
what  were  called  the  material  helps  of  education. 
There  was  then  gathered  in  a  single  room  all 
the  outward  machinery  of  moral  and  intellectual 
training ;  all  by  which  order  might  be  best 
maintained,  the  labour  of  the  teacher  and  the 
taught  economized,  with  a  thousand  ingenious 
devices  suggested  by  the  best  experience  of 
many  minds,  and  of  these  during  many  years. 
Nor  were  these  material  helps  of  education 
merely  mechanical.  There  were  in  that  collec- 
tion vivid  representations  of  places  and  objects  ; 
models  which  often  preserved  their  actual  forms 
and  proportions,  not  to  speak  of  maps  and  of 
books.  No  one  who  is  aware  how  much  in 
schools,  and  indeed  everywhere  else,  depends  on 
what  apparently  is  slight  and  external,  would 
lightly  esteem  the  helps  and  hints  which  such  a 
collection  would  furnish.  And  yet  it  would  be 
well  for  us  to  remember  that  even  if  we  were  to 


296      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lkt. 

obtain  all  this  apparatus  in  its  completcst  form, 
at  the  same  time  possessing  the  most  perfect 
skill  in  its  application,  so  that  it  should  never 
encumber  but  always  assist  us,  we  should  yet 
have  obtained  very  little  compared  with  that 
which,  as  a  help  to  education,  is  already  ours. 
When  we  stand  face  to  face  with  a  child,  that 
spoken  or  unspoken  word  which  the  child  pos- 
sesses in  common  with  ourselves  is  a  far  more 
potent  implement  and  aid  of  education  than  all 
these  external  helps,  even  though  they  should 
be  accumulated  and  multiplied  a  thousandfold. 
A  reassuring  thought  for  those  who  may  not 
have  many  of  these  helps  within  their  reach,  a 
warning  thought  for  those  who  might  be  tempted 
to  put  their  trust  in  them.  On  the  occasion  of 
that  Exhibition  to  which  I  have  referred,  it  was 
well  said,  '  On  the  structure  of  language  are  im- 
pressed the  most  distinct  and  durable  records  of 
the  habitual  operations  of  the  human  powers. 
In  the  full  possession  of  language  each  man  has 
a  vast,  almost  an  inexhaustible,  treasure  of  ex- 
amples of  the  most  subtle  and  varied  processes 
of  human  thought.  Much  apparatus,  many 
material  helps,  some  of  them  costly,  may  be 
employed  to  assist  education  ;  but  there  is  no 
apparatus  which  is  so  necessary,  or  which  can 
do  so  much,  as  that  which  is  the  most  common 
and  the  cheapest — which  is  always  at  hand,  and 
ready  for  every  need.  Every  language  contains 
in  it  the  result  of  a  greater  number  of  educational 


tu.  Learning  and  Teaching.  297 

processes  and  educational  experiments,  than  we 
could  by  any  amount  of  labour  and  ingenuity 
accumulate  in  any  educational  exhibition  ex- 
pressly contrived  for  such  a  purpose.' 

Being  entirely  convinced  that  this  is  nothing 
more  than  the  truth,  I  shall  endeavour  in  my 
closing  lecture  to  suggest  some  ways  in  which 
you  may  effectually  use  this  marvellous  imple- 
ment which  you  possess  to  the  better  fulfilling 
of  that  which  you  have  chosen  as  the  proper 
task  of  your  life.  You  will  gladly  hear  some- 
thing upon  this  matter  ;  for  you  will  never,  I 
trust,  disconnect  what  you  may  yourselves  be 
learning  from  the  hope  and  prospect  of  being 
enabled  thereby  to  teach  others  more  effectually. 
If  you  do,  and  your  studies  in  this  way  become 
a  selfish  thing,  if  you  are  content  to  leave  them 
barren  of  all  profit  to  others,  of  this  you  may  be 
sure,  that  in  the  end  they  will  prove  not  less 
barren  of  profit  to  yourselves.  In  one  noble  line 
Chaucer  has  characterized  the  true  scholar  : — 

1  And  gladly  would  he  learn,  and  gladly  teach.' 

Print  these  words  on  your  remembrance.  Re- 
solve that  in  the  spirit  of  this  line  you  will  work 
and  live. 

But  take  here  a  word  or  two  of  warning  before 
we  advance  any  further.  You  cannot,  of  course, 
expect  to  make  any  original  investigations  in 
language  ;  but  you  can  follow  safe  guides,  such 
as  shall  lead  you  by  right  paths,  even  as  you 


298     Schoolmaster's  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

may  follow  such  as  can  only  lead  you  astray. 
Do  not  fail  to  keep  in  mind  that  perhaps  in  no 
region  of  human  knowledge  are  there  such  a 
multitude  of  unsafe  leaders  as  in  this  ;  for  in- 
deed this  science  of  words  is  one  which  many, 
professing  for  it  an  earnest  devotion,  have  done 
their  best  or  their  worst  to  bring  into  discredit, 
and  to  make  a  laughing-stock  at  once  of  the 
foolish  and  the  wise.  Niebuhr  has  somewhere 
noted  '  the  unspeakable  spirit  of  absurdity  '  which 
seemed  to  possess  the  ancients,  whenever  they 
meddled  with  this  subject  ;  but  the  charge 
reaches  others  beside  them.  Their  mantle,  it 
must  be  owned,  has  in  after  times  often  fallen 
upon  no  unworthy  successors. 

What  is  commoner,  even  now,  than  to  find 
the  investigator  of  words  and  their  origin  look- 
ing round  about  him  here  and  there,  in  all  the 
languages,  ancient  and  modern,  to  which  he  has 
any  access,  till  he  lights  on  some  word,  it 
matters  little  to  him  in  which  of  these,  more  or 
less  resembling  that  which  he  wishes  to  derive  ? 
and  this  found,  to  consider  his  problem  solved, 
and  that  in  this  phantom  hunt  he  has  success- 
fully run  down  his  prey.  Even  Dr.  Johnson, 
with  his  robust,  strong,  English  common-sense, 
too  often  offends  in  this  way.  In  many  respects 
his  Dictionary  will  probably  never  be  surpassed. 
We  shall  never  have  more  concise,  more  accurate, 
more  vigorous  explanations  of  the  actual  mean- 
ing of  words,  at  the  time  when  it  was  published, 


m.  yohnsons  Dictionary.  299 

than  he  has  furnished.  But  even  those  who 
recognize  the  most  fully  this  merit,  must  allow 
that  he  was  ill  equipped  by  any  preliminary 
studies  for  tracing  the  past  history  of  words  ; 
that  in  this  he  errs  often  and  signally  ;  some- 
times where  the  smallest  possible  amount  of 
knowledge  would  have  preserved  him  from 
error ;  as  for  instance  when  he  derives  the  name 
of  the  peacock  from  the  peak,  or  tuft  of  pointed 
feathers,  on  its  head  !  while  other  derivations 
proposed  or  allowed  by  him  and  others  are  so 
far  more  absurd  than  this,  that  when  Swift,  in 
ridicule  of  the  whole  band  of  philologers,  sug- 
gests that  •  ostler '  is  only  a  contraction  of  oat- 
stealer,  and  '  breeches '  of  bear-riches,  these 
etymologies  are  scarcely  more  ridiculous  than 
many  which  have  in  sober  earnest,  and  by  men 
of  no  inconsiderable  reputation,  been  proposed. 

Oftentimes  in  this  scheme  of  random  ety- 
mology, a  word  in  one  language  is  derived  from 
one  in  another,  in  bold  defiance  of  the  fact  that 
no  points  of  historic  contact  or  connexion,  me- 
diate or  immediate,  have  ever  existed  between 
the  two  ;  the  etymologist  not  caring  to  ask  him- 
self whether  it  was  thus  so  much  as  possible 
that  the  word  should  have  passed  from  the  one 
language  to  the  other ;  whether  in  fact  the  re- 
semblance is  not  merely  superficial  and  illusory, 
one  which,  so  soon  as  they  are  stripped  of  their 
accidents,  disappears  altogether.  Take  a  few 
specimens  of  this  manner  of  dealing  with  words  ; 


300     Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lbct. 

and  first  from  the  earlier  etymologists.  Thus, 
what  are  men  doing  but  extending  not  the  limits 
of  their  knowledge  but  of  their  ignorance,  when 
they  deduce,  with  Varro,  '  pavo '  from  '  pavor,' 
because  of  the  fear  which  the  harsh  shriek  of  the 
peacock  awakens  ;  or  with  Pliny,  '  panthera  ' 
from  irav  Oijpiuv,  because  properties  of  all  beasts 
meet  in  the  panther  ;  or  persuade  themselves 
that  '  formica,'  the  ant,  is  *  ferens  micas,'  the 
grain-bearer.  Medieval  suggestions  abound,  as 
vain,  and  if  possible,  vainer  still.  Thus  Sirens, 
as  Chaucer  assures  us,  are  '  serenes,'  being  fair- 
weather  creatures  only  to  be  seen  in  a  calm.* 
1  Apis,'  a  bee,  is  airovs  or  without  feet,  bees  being 
born  without  feet,  the  etymology  and  the  natural 
history  keeping  excellent  company  together. 
Or  what  shall  we  say  of  deriving  '  mors '  from 
'  amarus,'  because  death  is  bitter  ;  or  from  '  Mars,' 
because  death  is  frequent  in  war  ;  or  '  a  morsu 
vetiti  pomi,'  because  that  forbidden  bite  brought 
death  into  the  world  ;  or  with  a  modern  inves- 
tigator of  language,  and  one  of  high  reputation 
in  his  time,  deducing  '  girl '  from  '  garrula,'  be- 
cause girls  are  commonly  talkative  ?| 


•  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  678. 

t  Manage  is  one  of  these  '  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,' 
of  whom  I  have  spoken  above.  With  all  their  real, 
though  not  very  accurate,  erudition,  his  three  folio 
volumes,  two  on  French,  one  on  Italian  etymologies, 
have  done  nothing  but  harm  to  the  cause  which  they 
were  intended   to  further.     Genin  {Recreations  Philolo- 


vil  Random  Etymologies.  301 

All  experience,  indeed,  proves  how  perilous 
it  is  to  etymologize  at  random,  and  on  the 
strength  of  mere  surface  similarities  of  sound. 
Let  me  illustrate  the  absurdities  into  which  this 
may  easily  betray  us  by  an  amusing  example. 
A  clergyman,  who  himself  told  me  the  story, 
had  sought,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  kindle  in 
his  schoolmaster  a  passion  for  the  study  of  deri- 
vations. His  scholar  inquired  of  him  one  day 
if  he  were  aware  of  the  derivation  of  '  crypt '  ? 
He  naturally  applied  in  the  affirmative,  that 
1  crypt '  came  from  a  Greek  word  to  conceal, 
and  meant  a  covered  place,  itself  concealed,  and 
where  things  which  it  was  wished  to  conceal  were 
placed.     The  other  rejoined  that  he  was  quite 


giques,  pp.  12-15)  passes  a  severe  but  just  judgment  upon 
them.  Menage,  comme  tous  ses  devanciers  et  la  plupart 
de  ses  successeurs,  semble  n'avoir  ete  dirigd  que  par  un 
seul  principe  en  fait  d'etymologie.  Le  voici  dans  son 
expression  la  plus  nette.  Tout  mot  vient  du  mot  qui  lui 
ressemble  le  mieux.  Cela  pose",  Menage,  avec  son  erudi- 
tion polyglotte,  s'abat  sur  le  grec,  le  latin,  Pitalien,  l'es- 
pagnol,  l'allemand,  le  celtique,  et  ne  fait  difficult^  d'aller 
jusqu'a  l'hebreu.  C'est  dommage  que  de  son  temps  on 
ne  cultivat  pas  encore  le  Sanscrit,  l'hindoustani,  le  thibe'- 
tain  et  l'arabe  :  il  les  eut  contraints  a  lui  livrer  des  Ety- 
mologies franchises.  II  ne  se  met  pas  en  peine  des 
chemins  par  ou  un  mot  hebreu  ou  carthaginois  aurait  pu 
passer  pour  venir  s'etablir  en  France.  II  y  est,  le  voila, 
suffit  !  L'identite  ne  peut  etre  mise  en  question  devant 
la  ressemblance,  et  souvent  Dieu  sait  quelle  ressemblance  ! 
Compare  Ampere,  Formation  de  la  Langue  Frangaise, 
pp.  194,  195. 


302     Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

aware  the  word  was  commonly  so  explained, 
but  he  had  no  doubt  erroneously  ;  that  '  crypt/ 
as  he  had  now  convinced  himself,  was  in  fact 
contracted  from  '  cry-pit '  ;  being  the  pit  where 
in  days  of  Popish  tyranny  those  who  were  con- 
demned to  cruel  penances  were  plunged,  and 
out  of  which  their  cry  was  heard  to  come  up — 
therefore  called  the  'cry-pit,'  now  contracted 
into  '  crypt ' !  Let  me  say,  before  quitting  my 
tale,  that  I  would  far  sooner  a  schoolmaster 
made  a  hundred  such  mistakes  than  that  he 
should  be  careless  and  incurious  in  all  which 
concerned  the  words  which  he  was  using.  To 
make  mistakes,  as  we  are  in  the  search  of 
knowledge,  is  far  more  honourable  than  to 
escape  making  them  through  never  having  set 
out  in  this  search  at  all. 

But  while  errors  like  his  may  very  well  be 
pardoned,  of  this  we  may  be  sure,  that  they  will 
do  little  in  etymology,  will  continually  eir  and 
cause  others  to  err,  who  in  these  studies  leave 
this  out  of  sight  for  an  instant — namely,  that  no 
amount  of  resemblance  between  words  h:  dif- 
ferent languages  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  prove 
that  they  are  akin,  even  as  no  amount  of  appa- 
rent unlikeness  in  sound  or  present  form  is 
sufficient  to  disprove  consanguinity.  'Judge  not 
according  to  appearances,'  must  everywhere  here 
be  the  rule.  One  who  in  many  regions  of  human 
knowledge  anticipated  the  discoveries  of  later 
times,  said  well  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  '  Many 


vii.  Accidental  Coincidences.  303 

etymologies  are  true,  which  at  the  first  blush  are 
not  probable'  ;*  and,  as  he  might  have  added, 
many  appear  probable,  which  are  not  true.  This 
being  so,  it  is  our  wisdom  on  the  one  side  to 
distrust  superficial  likenesses,  on  the  other  not 
to  be  repelled  by  superficial  differences.  Have 
no  faith  in  those  who  etymologize  on  the 
strength  of  sounds,  and  not  on  that  of  letters, 
and  of  letters,  moreover,  dealt  with  according  to 
fixed  and  recognized  laws  of  equivalence  and 
permutation.  Much,  as  was  said  so  well,  is  true, 
which  does  not  seem  probable.  Thus  '  dens  '  f 
and  •  zahn  '  and  '  tooth  '  are  all  the  same  word, 
and  such  in  like  manner  are  ^v,  'anser,'  'gans,' 
and  '  goose  ; '  and  again,  8d/epv  and  '  tear.'  Who, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  not  take  for  granted 
that  our  '  much '  and  the  Spanish  '  mucho,' 
identical  in  meaning,  were  also  in  etymology 
nearly  related  ?  There  is  in  fact  no  connexion 
between  them.  Between  '  vulgus  '  and  '  volk ' 
there  is  as  little.  '  Auge,'  the  German  form  of 
our  '  eye,'  is  in  every  letter  identical  with  a  Greek 
word  for  splendour  (avyrj) ;  and  yet,  intimate  as 
is  the  connexion  between  German  and  Greek, 
these  have  no  relation  with  one  another  what- 
ever.   Not  many  years  ago  a  considerable  scholar 

*  Leibnitz  {Opp.  vol.  v.  p.  61)  :  Saepe  fit  ut  etymologize 
verae  sint,  quae  primo  aspectu  verisimiles  non  sunt. 

t  Compare  Max  Miiller,  Chips  fro?n  a  German 
Workshop,  vol.  iv.  p.  25  ;  Heyse,  System  der  Spracn- 
ivissenschaft,  p.  307. 


304     Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

identified  the  Greek  'holos*  (o\os)  and  our 
'  whole  ; '  and  few,  I  should  imagine,  have  not 
been  tempted  at  one  stage  of  their  knowledge 
to  do  the  same.  These  also  are  in  no  way  re- 
lated. Need  I  remind  you  here  of  the  import- 
ance of  seeking  to  obtain  in  every  case  the 
earliest  spelling  of  a  word  which  is  attainable?  * 
Here  then,  as  elsewhere,  the  condition  of  all 
successful  investigation  is  to  have  learned  to 
disregard  phenomena,  the  deceitful  shows  and 
appearances  of  things  ;  to  have  resolved  to  reach 
and  to  grapple  with  the  things  themselves.  It 
is  the  fable  of  Proteus  over  again.  He  will  take 
a  thousand  shapes  wherewith  he  will  seek  to 
elude  and  delude  one  who  is  determined  to 
extort  from  him  that  true  answer,  which  he  is 
capable  of  yielding,  but  will  only  yield  on  com- 
pulsion. The  true  inquirer  is  deceived  by  none 
of  these.  He  still  holds  him  fast  ;  binds  him 
in  strong  chains  ;  until  he  takes  his  proper  shape 
at  the  last ;  and  answers  as  a  true  seer,  so  far  as 
answer  is  possible,  whatever  question  may  be 
put  to  him.  Nor,  let  me  observe  by  the  way, 
will  that  man's  gain  be  small  who,  having  so 
learned  to  distrust  the  obvious  and  the  plausible, 
carries  into  other  regions  of  study  and  of  action 
the  lessons  which  he  has  thus  learned  ;  deter- 
mines to  seek  the  ground  of  things,  and  to  plant 

•  What  signal  gains  may  in  this  way  be  made  no  one 
has  shown  more  remarkably  than  Skeat  in  his  Etymo- 
logical Dictionary. 


vii.  Phonetic  Spelling.  305 

his  foot  upon  that ;  believes  that  a  lie  may  look 
very  fair,  and  yet  be  a  lie  after  all ;  that  the  truth 
may  show  very  unattractive,  very  unlikely  and 
paradoxical,  and  yet  be  the  very  truth  notwith- 
standing. 

To  return  from  a  long,  but  not  unnecessary 
digression.  Convinced  as  I  am  of  the  immense 
advantage  of  following  up  words  to  their  sources, 
of '  deriving '  them,  that  is,  of  tracing  each  little 
rill  to  the  river  from  whence  it  was  first  drawn,  I 
can  conceive  no  method  of  so  effectually  defacing 
and  barbarizing  our  English  tongue,  of  practi- 
cally emptying  it  of  all  the  hoarded  wit,  wisdom, 
imagination,  and  history  which  it  contains,  of 
eutting  the  vital  nerve  which  connects  its  pre- 
sent with  the  past,  as  the  introduction  of  the 
scheme  of  phonetic  spelling,  which  some  have 
lately  been  zealously  advocating  among  us.  I 
need  hardly  tell  you  that  the  fundamental  idea 
of  this  is  that  all  words  should  be  spelt  as  they 
are  sounded,  that  the  writing  should,  in  every 
case,  be  subordinated  to  the  speaking.*  This, 
namely  that  writing  should  in  every  case  and  at 
all  costs  be  subordinated  to  speaking,  which  is 
everywhere  tacitly  assumed  as  not  needing  any 


*  I  do  not  know  whether  the  advocates  of  phonetic 
spelling  have  urged  the  authority  and  practice  of  Augustus 
as  being  in  their  favour.  Suetonius,  among  other  amusing 
gossip  about  this  Emperor,  records  of  him  :  Videtur 
eorum  sequi  opinionem,  qui  perinde  scribendum  ac  loqua- 
mur,  existiment  {Octavius.  c.  88). 

X 


306     Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

proof,  is  the  fallacy  which  runs  through  the 
whole  scheme.  There  is,  indeed,  no  necessity 
at  all  for  this.  Every  word,  on  the  contrary,  has 
tivo  existences,  as  a  spoken  word  and  a  written  ; 
and  you  have  no  right  to  sacrifice  one  of  these, 
or  even  to  subordinate  it  wholly,  to  the  other. 
A  word  exists  as  truly  for  the  eye  as  for  the 
ear ;  and  in  a  highly  advanced  state  of  society, 
where  reading  is  almost  as  universal  as  speak- 
ing, quite  as  much  for  the  one  as  for  the  other. 
That  in  the  written  word  moreover  is  the  per- 
manence and  continuity  of  language  and  of 
learning,  and  that  the  connexion  is  most  inti- 
mate of  a  true  orthography  with  all  this,  is 
affirmed  in  our  words,  •  letters,'  '  literature,'  '  un- 
lettered,' as  in  other  languages  by  words  exactly 
corresponding  to  these.* 

The  gains  consequent  on  the  introduction  of 
such  a  change  in  our  manner  of  spelling  would 
be  insignificantly  small,  the  losses  enormously 
great.  There  would  be  gain  in  the  saving  of  a 
certain  amount  of  the  labour  now  spent  in  learn- 
ing to  spell.  The  amount  of  labour,  however,  is 
absurdly  exaggerated  by  the  promoters  of  the 
scheme.  I  forget  how  many  thousand  hours  a 
phonetic  reformer  lately  assured  us  were  on  an 
average  spent  by  every  English  child  in  learning 
to  spell ;  or  how  much  time  by  grown  men,  who, 
as  he  assured  us,  for  the  most  part  rarely  at- 


*  As  ypdjj.ixara}  aypa'/i/iaroy,  litterce^  belles-lettres. 


*«.  Phonetic  Spelling.  307 

tempted  to  write  a  letter  without  a  Johnson's 
Dictionary  at  their  side.  But  even  this  gain 
would  not  long  remain,  seeing  that  pronuncia- 
tion is  itself  continually  changing ;  custom  is 
lord  here  for  better  and  for  worse  ;  and  a  mul- 
titude of  words  are  now  pronounced  in  a  manner 
different  from  that  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  in- 
deed from  that  of  ten  years  ago  ;  so  that,  before 
very  long,  there  would  again  be  a  chasm  between 
the  spelling  and  the  pronunciation  of  words  ; — 
unless  indeed  the  spelling  varied,  which  it  could 
not  consistently  refuse  to  do,  as  the  pronuncia- 
tion varied,  reproducing  each  of  its  capricious  or 
barbarous  alterations  ;  these  last,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, being  changes  not  in  the  pronuncia- 
tion only,  but  in  the  word  itself,  which  would 
only  exist  as  pronounced,  the  written  word  being 
a  mere  shadow  servilely  waiting  upon  the  spoken. 
When  these  changes  had  multiplied  a  little,  and 
they  would  indeed  multiply  exceedingly  on  the 
removal  of  the  barriers  to  change  which  now 
exist,  what  the  language  before  long  would 
become,  it  is  not  easy  to  guess. 

This  fact  however,  though  sufficient  to  show 
how  ineffectual  the  scheme  of  phonetic  spelling 
would  prove,  even  for  the  removing  of  those 
inconveniences  which  it  proposes  to  remedy,  is 
only  the  smallest  objection  to  it.  The  far  more 
serious  charge  which  may  be  brought  against  it 
is,  that  in  words  out  of  number  it  would  oblite- 
rate those  clear  marks  of  birth  and  parentage, 

x  2 


308     Schoolmaster's  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

which  they  bear  now  upon  their  fronts,  or  are 
ready,  upon  a  very  slight  interrogation,  to  reveal. 
Words  have  now  an  ancestry  ;  and  the  ancestry 
of  words,  as  of  men,  is  often  a  very  noble  posses- 
sion, making  them  capable  of  great  things,  be- 
cause those  from  whom  they  are  descended  have 
done  great  things  before  them  ;  but  this  would 
deface  their  scutcheon,  and  bring  them  all  to  the 
same  ignoble  level.  Words  are  now  a  nation, 
grouped  into  tribes  and  families,  some  smaller, 
some  larger  ;  this  change  would  go  far  to  reduce 
them  to  a  promiscuous  and  barbarous  horde. 
Now  they  are  often  translucent  with  their  inner 
thought,  lighted  up  by  it  ;  in  how  many  cases 
would  this  inner  light  be  then  quenched  !  They 
have  now  a  body  and  a  soul,  the  soul  quickening 
the  body ;  then  oftentimes  nothing  but  a  body, 
forsaken  by  the  spirit  of  life,  would  remain. 
These  objections  were  urged  long  ago  by  Bacon, 
who  characterizes  this  so-called  reformation,  'that 
writing  should  be  consonant  to  speaking,'  as  '  a 
branch  of  unprofitable  subtlety  ;  '  and  especially 
urges  that  thereby '  the  derivations  of  words,  espe- 
cially from  foreign  languages,  are  utterly  defaced 
and  extinguished.'  * 


•  The  same  attempt  to  introduce  phonography  has 
been  several  times  made,  once  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  again  some  thirty  years  ago  in  France.  What  would 
be  there  the  results  ?  We  may  judge  of  these  from  the 
results  of  a  partial  application  of  the  system.  '  Temps' 
is  now  written  'terns,'  the/  having  been  ejected  as  super- 


vn.  Phonetic  Spelling.  309 

From  the  results  of  various  approximations 
to  phonetic  spelling,  which  at  different  times 
have  been  made,  and  the  losses  thereon  ensuing, 
we  may  guess  what  the  loss  would  be  were  the 
system  fully  carried  out.  Of  those  fairly  ac- 
quainted with  Latin,  it  would  be  curious  to  know 
how  many  have  seen  '  silva '  in  '  savage,'  since  it 
has  been  so  written,  and  not '  salvage,'  as  of  old  ? 
or  have  been  reminded  of  the  hindrances  to  a 
civilized  and  human  society  which  the  indomit- 
able forest,  more  perhaps  than  any  other  obstacle, 


rluous.  What  is  the  consequence?  at  once  its  visible 
connexion  with  the  Latin  '  tempus,'  with  the  Spanish 
'  tiempo,'  with  the  Italian  '  tempo,'  with  its  own  '  temporel ' 
and  '  temporaire,'  is  broken,  and  for  many  effaced.  Or 
note  the  result  from  another  point  of  view.  Here  are 
'  poids '  a  weight,  '  poix '  pitch,  «  pois  '  peas.  No  one 
could  mark  in  speaking  the  distinction  between  these  ; 
and  thus  to  the  ear  there  maybe  confusion  between  them, 
but  to  the  eye  there  is  none  ;  not  to  say  that  the  d  in 
'poi^s'  puts  it  for  us  in  relation  with  'pon^us,'  the  x  in 
'pour'  with  'pir,'  the  s  in  'poij'with  the  Low  Latin 
•  puum.'  In  each  case  the  letter  which  these  reformers 
would  dismiss  as  useless,  and  worse  than  useless,  keeps 
the  secret  of  the  word.  On  some  other  attempts  in  the 
same  direction  see  in  D' Israeli,  Amenities  of  Literature, 
an  article  On  Orthography  and  Orthoepy  ;  and  compare 
Diez,  Romanische  Sprache,  vol.  i.  p.  52.  [In  the  form 
poids  we  have  a  striking  example  of  a  wretchedly  bad 
spelling  which  is  due  to  an  attempt  to  make  the  spelling 
etymological.  Unfortunately  the  etymology  is  erroneous  : 
the  French  word  for  weight  has  nothing  in  the  world  to 
do  with  La.t\npondzis  ;  it  is  the  phonetic  representative  cf 
the  Latin  pensum,  and  should  be  spelt  pois.j 


3  i  o      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.       «-ect. 


o 


presents.  When  '  fancy '  was  spelt  '  phant'sy,' 
as  by  Sylvester  in  his  translation  of  Du  Bartas, 
and  other  scholarly  writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  no  one  could  doubt  of  its  identity  with 
'  phantasy,'  as  no  Greek  scholar  could  miss  its 
relation  with  fyavraala.  Spell  'analyse'  as  I 
have  sometimes  seen  it,  and  as  phonetically  it 
ought  to  be,  '  annalize,'  and  the  tap-root  of  the 
word  is  cut.  How  many  readers  will  recognize 
in  it  then  the  image  of  dissolving  and  resolving 
aught  into  its  elements,  and  use  it  with  a  more 
or  less  conscious  reference  to  this  ?  It  may  be 
urged  that  few  do  so  even  now.  The  more  need 
they  should  not  be  fewer ;  for  these  few  do  in 
fact  retain  the  word  in  its  place,  from  which  else 
it  might  gradually  drift  ;  they  preserve  its  vitality, 
and  the  propriety  of  its  use,  not  merely  for  them- 
selves, but  also  for  the  others  that  have  not  this 
knowledge.  In  phonetic  spelling  is,  in  fact,  the 
proposal  that  the  learned  and  the  educated  should 
of  free  choice  place  themselves  under  the  disad- 
vantages of  the  ignorant  and  uneducated,  instead 
of  seeking  to  elevate  these  last  to  their  own  more 
favoured  condition. 

On  this  subject  one  observation  more.  The 
multitude  of  difficulties  of  every  sort  and  size 
which  would  beset  the  period  of  transition,  and 
that  no  brief  period,  from  our  present  spelling  to 
the  very  easiest  form  of  phonetic,  seem  to  me  to 
be  almost  wholly  overlooked  by  those  who  arc 
the  most  eager  to  press  forward  this  scheme : 


v.i.  Relationship  of  Words.  3 1 1 

while  yet  it  is  very  noticeable  that  so  soon  as 
ever  the  '  Spelling  Reform  '  approaches,  how- 
ever remotely,  a  practical  shape,  the  Reformers, 
who  up  to  this  time  were  at  issue  with  all  the 
rest  of  the  world,  are  at  once  at  issue  among 
themselves.  At  once  the  question  comes  to  the 
front,  Shall  the  labour-pangs  of  this  immense 
new-birth  or  transformation  of  English  be  en- 
countered all  at  once  ?  or  shall  they  be  spread  over 
years,  and  little  by  little  the  necessary  changes 
introduced  ?  It  would  not  be  easy  to  bring 
together  two  scholars  who  have  bestowed  more 
thought  and  the  results  of  more  laborious  study 
on  the  whole  subject  of  phonetic  spelling  than 
Mr.  Ellis  and  Dr.  Murray  have  done,  while  yet 
at  the  last  annual  meeting  of  the  Philological 
Society  (May  20,  1881)  these  two  distinguished 
scholars,  with  mutual  respect  undiminished,  had 
no  choice  but  to  acknowledge  that,  while  they 
were  seeking  the  same  objects,  the  means  by 
which  they  sought  to  attain  them  were  alto- 
gether different,  and  that,  in  the  judgment  of 
each,  all  which  the  other  was  doing  in  setting  for- 
ward results  equally  dear  to  both  was  only  tend- 
ing to  put  hindrances  in  the  way,  and  to  make 
the  attainment  of  those  results  remoter  than  ever.* 
But  to  return.     Even  now  the  relationships 


*  [For  arguments  in  defence  of  phonetic  spelling  the 
student  is  referred  to  Sweet's  Handbook  of  Phonetics 
(Appendix)  ;  Skeat's  Principles  of  English  Etymology, 
p.  294  ;  Max  M liner's  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Lan* 
guage,  ii.  108.] 


3 1 2      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.       lect. 

of  words,  so  important  for  our  right  understand- 
ing of  them,  are  continually  overlooked  ;  a  very 
little  matter  serving  to  conceal  from  us  the  family 
to  which  they  pertain.  Thus  how  many  of  our 
nouns  are  indeed  unsuspected  participles,  or  are 
otherwise  most  closely  connected  with  verbs, 
with  which  we  probably  never  think  of  putting 
them  in  relation.  And  yet  with  how  lively  an 
interest  shall  we  discover  those  to  be  of  closest 
kin,  which  we  had  never  considered  but  as  entire 
strangers  to  one  another ;  what  increased  mas- 
tery over  our  mother  tongue  shall  we  through 
such  discoveries  obtain.  Thus  '  wrong '  is  an 
adjective  related  to  the  verb  'to  wring,'  that 
which  has  been  '  wrung '  or  wrested  from  the 
right ;  as  in  French  '  tort,'  from  '  torqueo,'  is  '  the 
twisted.'  The  '  brunt '  of  the  battle  is  its  heat, 
where  it  '  burns'  the  most  fiercely;*  the  'haft' 
of  a  knife,  probably  that  whereby  you  '  have '  or 
hold  it. 

This  exercise  of  putting  words  in  their  true 
relation  and  connexion  with  one  another  might 
be  carried  much  further.  Of  whole  groups  of 
words,  which  may  seem  to  acknowledge  no  kin- 
ship with  one  another,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  they  had  the  same  parentage,  or,  if 
not  this,  a  cousinship  in  common.  For  instance, 
here  are 'shore,'  'share,'  'shears';  'shred,"  sherd'; 

•  [The  word  brunt  is  a  difficult  form  to  explain.  The 
New  English  Diet,  says  :  '  Origin  unknown  ;  the  word 
may  be  an  English  onomatopoeia  :  cp.  dunt  and  various 
br-  words,  implying  sharp  or  smart  application  of  force.'] 


rn.  Relationship  of  Words.  3 1 3 

all  most  closely  connected  with  the  verb  '  to 
shear.'  '  Share '  is  a  portion  of  anything  divided 
off;  'shears'  are  instruments  effecting  this  pro- 
cess of  separation  ;  the  'shore'  is  the  place  where 
the  continuity  of  the  land  is  interrupted  by  the 
sea ;  a  '  shred '  is  that  which  is  shorn  from  the 
main  piece  ;  a '  sherd,'  as  a  pot-'  sherd,'  also  '  pot- 
share,'  Spenser,)  that  which  is  broken  off  and 
thus  divided  from  the  vessel ;  these  not  all  ex- 
hausting this  group  or  family  of  words,  though 
it  would  occupy  more  time  than  we  can  spare  to 
put  some  other  words  in  their  relation  with  it. 

But  this  analysing  of  groups  of  words  for  the 
detecting  of  the  bond  of  relationship  between 
them,  and  their  common  root,  may  require  more 
etymological  knowledge  than  you  possess,  and 
more  helps  from  books  than  you  can  always 
command.  There  is  another  process,  and  one 
which  may  prove  no  less  useful  to  yourselves 
and  to  others,  which  will  lie  more  certainly 
within  your  reach.  You  will  meet  in  books, 
sometimes  in  the  same  book,  and  perhaps  in 
the  same  page  of  this  book,  a  word  used  in 
senses  so  far  apart  from  one  another  that  at 
first  it  will  seem  to  you  absurd  to  suppose  any 
bond  of  connexion  between  them.  Now  when 
you  thus  fall  in  with  a  word  employed  in  these 
two  or  more  senses  so  far  removed  from  one 
another,  accustom  yourselves  to  seek  out  the 
bond  which  there  certainly  is  between  these 
several  uses.  This  tracing  of  that  which  is  com- 
mon to  and  connects  all  its  meanings  can  only 


3 1 4     Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.        lect. 

be  done  by  getting  to  its  centre  and  heart,  to 
the  seminal  meaning,  from  which,  as  from  a 
fruitful  seed,  all  the  others  unfold  themselves  ; 
to  the  first  link  in  the  chain,  from  which  every 
later  one,  in  a  direct  line  or  a  lateral,  depends. 
We  may  proceed  in  this  investigation,  certain 
that  we  shall  find  such,  or  at  least  that  such 
there  is  to  be  found.  For  nothing  can  be  more 
certain  than  this  (and  the  non-recognition  of  it  is 
a  serious  blemish  in  Johnson's  Dictionary),  that 
a  word  has  originally  but  one  meaning,  that  all 
other  uses,  however  widely  they  may  diverge 
from  one  another  and  recede  from  this  one,  may 
yet  be  affiliated  to  it,  brought  back  to  the  one 
central  meaning,  which  grasps  and  knits  them 
all  together  ;  just  as  the  several  races  of  men, 
black,  white,  and  yellow  and  red,  despite  of  all 
their  present  diversity  and  dispersion,  have  a 
central  point  of  unity  in  that  one  pair  from  which 
they  all  have  descended. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  two  or  three  familiar 
examples.  How  various  are  the  senses  in  which 
*  post '  is  used  ;  as  '  post  '-office  ;  '  post  '-haste  ; 
a  'post*  standing  in  the  ground;  a  military 
'  post ' ;  an  official  '  post ' ;  '  to  post '  a  ledger. 
Is  it  possible  to  find  anything  which  is  common 
to  all  these  uses  of  '  post '  ?  When  once  we  are 
on  the  right  track,  nothing  is  easier.  '  Post '  is 
the  Latin  'positus,'  that  which  is  placed ;  the 
piece  of  timber  is  '  placed '  in  the  ground,  and 
so  a  '  post '  ;  a  military  station  is  a  '  post,'  for  a 


A 

vii  Relationship  of  Words.  3 1 5 

man  is  '  placed '  in  it,  and  must  not  quit  it  without 
orders  ;  to  travel  '  post,'  is  to  have  certain  relays 
of  horses  '  placed  '  at  intervals,  that  so  no  delay 
on  the  road  may  occur;  the  '  post  '-office  avails 
itself  of  this  mode  of  communication  ;  to  '  post ' 
a  ledger  is  to  '  place '  or  register  its  several  items. 
Once  more,  in  what  an  almost  infinite  num- 
ber of  senses  '  stock  '  is  employed  ;  we  have  live 
'  stock,'  '  stock '  in  trade  or  on  the  farm,  the 
village '  stocks,'  the  '  stock  '  of  a  gun,  the '  stock  '- 
dove,  the  '  stocks,'  on  which  ships  are  built,  the 
'  stock  '  which  goes  round  the  neck,  the  family 
'  stock,'  the  '  stocks,'  or  public  funds,  in  which 
money  is  invested,  with  other  '  stocks '  besides 
these.  What  point  in  common  can  we  find 
between  them  all  ?  This,  that  being  all  derived 
from  one  verb,  they  cohere  in  the  idea  of  fixed- 
ness which  is  common  to  them  all.  Thus,  the 
'stock'  of  a  gun  is  that  in  which  the  barrel  is 
fixed  ;  the  village  'stocks'  are  those  in  which 
the  feet  are  fastened  ;  the  '  stock '  in  trade  is 
the  fixed  capital  ;  and  so  too,  the  'stock'  on  the 
farm,  although  the  fixed  capital  has  there  taken 
the  shape  of  horses  and  cattle  ;  in  the  '  stocks ' 
or  public  funds,  money  sticks  fast,  inasmuch  as 
those  who  place  it  there  cannot  withdraw  or 
demand  the  capital,  but  receive  only  the  interest ; 
the  '  stock '  of  a  tree  is  fast  set  in  the  ground  ; 
and  from  this  use  of  the  word  it  is  transferred 
to  a  family  ;  the  '  stock '  is  that  from  which  it 
grows,  and  out  of  which  it  unfolds  itself.     And 


3 1 6      Schoolmasters  Use  of  Words.       "ct. 

here  we  may  bring  in  the  '  stock'-dove,  as  being 
the  'stock  '  or  stirps  of  the  domestic  kinds.  I 
might  group  with  these,  '  stake '  in  both  its 
spellings  ;  a  '  stake  '  is  stuck  in  the  hedge  and 
there  remains  ;  the  •  stakes '  which  men  wager 
against  the  issue  of  a  race  are  paid  down,  and 
thus  fixed  or  deposited  to  answer  the  event ;  a 
beef-'  steak '  is  a  portion  so  small  that  it  can  be 
stuck  on  the  point  of  a  fork  ;  and  so  forward.* 

When  we  thus  affirm  that  the  divergent 
meanings  of  a  word  can  all  be  brought  back 
to  some  one  point  from  which,  immediately  or 
mediately,  they  every  one  proceed,  that  none 
has  primarily  more  than  one  meaning,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  there  may  very  well  be  two 
words,  or,  as  it  will  sometimes  happen,  more, 
spelt  as  well  as  pronounced  alike,  which  yet  are 
wholly  different  in  their  derivation  and  primary 
usage  ;  and  that,  of  course,  between  such  homo- 
nyms or  homographs  as  these  no  bond  of  union 
on  the  score  of  this  identity  is  to  be  sought. 
Neither  does  this  fact  in  the  least  invalidate  our 
assertion.  We  have  in  them,  as  Cobbett  ex- 
presses it  well,  the  same  combination  of  letters, 
but  not  the  same  word.  Thus  we  have  '  page,' 
the  side  of  a  leaf,  from  '  pagina,'  and  '  page,' 
a  small  boy;  'league,'  a  treaty  (F.  ligue),  from 
ligare,'  to  bind,  and  '  league  '  (O.F.  legue),  from 
leuca,  a  Celtic  measure  of  distance  ;  '  host ' 
(hostis),   an    army,   '  host'    (O.F.    hoste),   from 

*  See  the  Instructions  for  Parish  Priests,  p.  69,  pub- 
lished by  the  Early  English  Texts  Society. 


vn.  Heterodynamic  Words.  3 1 7 

the  Latin  hospitem,  and  '  host '  (hostia),  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  We 
have  two  '  ounces  '  (uncia  and  It.  onza) ;  two 
'  seals '  (sigillum  and  seolh)  ;  two  '  moods ' 
(modus  and  mod) ;  two  '  sacks '  (saccus  and 
siccus)  ;  two  '  sounds '  (sonus  and  sund)  ;  two 
'  lakes  '  (lac  and  laque)  ;  two  '  kennels  '  (can- 
alis  and  canile)  ;  two  '  partisans '  (partisan  and 
partegiana)  ;  two  '  quires '  (chceur  and  cahier)  ; 
two  'corns'  (corn  and  cornu) ;  two  'ears'  (ohr 
and  ahre) ;  two  '  doles '  (deuil  and  theil)  ;  two 
'  perches  '  (pertica  and  perca)  ;  two  '  races'  (Icel. 
ras  and  the  Fr.  race) ;  two  '  rocks,'  two  '  rooks,' 
two  •  sprays,'  two  '  saws,'  two  '  strains,'  two 
1  trunks,'  two  '  burrows,'  two  '  helms,'  two  '  quar- 
ries '  ;  three  '  moles,'  three  '  rapes  '  (as  the  '  rape ' 
of  Proserpine,  the  '  rape '  of  Bramber,  '  rape  '- 
seed);  four 'ports,'  three 'vans,'  three  '  smacks.' 
Other  homonyms  in  the  language  are  the  fol- 
lowing :  '  ash,'  '  barb,'  '  bark,'  '  barnacle,'  '  bat, 
'  beam,'  '  beetle,'  '  bill,'  «  bottle,' '  bound,'  '  breeze, 
'bugle,'  'bull,'    'cape,'  'caper,'  'chap,'  'cleave, 

*  club,'  '  cob,'  '  crab,'  '  cricket,'  '  crop,'  '  crowd, 
•culver,'  'dam,'  '  elder,'  '  flag,'  '  fog,'  '  fold,'  '  font, 
'  fount,'  '  gin/  '  gore,'  '  grain,' '  grin,' '  gulf/  '  gum, 
•gust/  'herd/  'hind/  'hip/  'jade/  'jar/  'jet, 
•junk/  'lawn,'  'lime/  'link/  'mace/  'main, 
'  mass/  •  mast/  '  match/  '  meal/  •  mint/   '  moor, 

*  paddock/  '  painter,'  '  pernicious/  '  plot/  '  pulse, 
•punch/  'rush/  'scale/  'scrip,'  'shingle,'  'shock, 

*  shrub,'  '  smack/  '  soil,'  '  stud/  '  swallow,'  '  tap, 
'  tent,'  '  toil/    ■  trinket/  '  turtle.'     You   will  find 


3 1 8      Schoolmasters  Use  of  Words,      lect. 

it  profitable  to  follow  these  up  at  home,  to 
trace  out  the  two  or  more  words  which 
have  clothed  themselves  in  exactly  the  same 
outward  garb,  and  on  what  etymologies  they 
severally  repose  ;  so  too,  as  often  as  you  suspect 
the  existence  of  homonyms,  to  make  proof  of 
the  matter  for  yourselves,  gradually  forming  as 
complete  a  list  of  these  as  you  can.*  You  may 
usefully  do  the  same  in  any  other  language 
which  you  study,  for  they  exist  in  all.  In 
them  the  identity  is  merely  on  the  surface  and 
in  sound,  and  it  would,  of  course,  be  lost  labour 
to  seek  for  a  point  of  contact  between  meanings 
which  have  no  closer  connexion  with  one  an- 
other in  reality  than  they  have  in  appearance. 

Let  me  suggest  some  further  exercises  in  this 
region  of  words.  There  are  some  which  at  once 
provoke  and  promise  to  reward  inquiry,  by  the 
evident  readiness  with  which  they  will  yield  up 
the  secret,  if  duly  interrogated  by  us.  Many, 
as  we  have  seen,  have  defied,  and  will  probably 
defy  to  the  end,  all  efforts  to  dissipate  the 
mystery  which  hangs  over  them  ;  and  these  we 
must  be  content  to  leave ;  but  many  announce 
that  their  explanations  cannot  be  very  far  to 
seek.     Let    me   instance   'candidate.'     Does  it 

•  For  a  nearly  complete  list  of  homonyms  in  English 
see  List  of  Homonyms  at  the  end  of  Skeat's  Etym.  Diet.  ; 
Kock's  Historical  Grammar  of  the  English  Language^ 
vol.  i.  p.  223  ;  Matzner's  Engl.  Grammatik,  vol.  i.  pp. 
187-204  ;  and  compare  Dwight's  Modern  Philology,  voL 
ii.  p.  3" 


Candidate.  3 1 9 


not  argue  an  incurious  spirit  to  be  content  that 
this  word  should  be  given  and  received  by  us  a 
hundred  times,  as  at  a  contested  election  it  is, 
and  we  never  ask  ourselves,  What  does  it  mean  ? 
why  is  one  offering  himself  to  the  choice  of  his 
fellows  called  a  '  candidate  '  ?  If  the  word  lay 
evidently  beyond  our  horizon,  we  might  ac- 
quiesce in  our  ignorance  ;  but  resting,  as  mani- 
festly it  does,  upon  the  Latin  '  candidus,'  it 
challenges  inquiry,  and  a  very  little  of  this 
would  at  once  put  us  in  possession  of  the  Roman 
custom  for  which  it  witnesses — namely,  that 
such  as  intended  to  claim  the  suffrages  of  the 
people  for  any  of  the  chief  offices  of  the  State, 
presented  themselves  beforehand  to  them  in  a 
white  toga,  being  therefore  called  '  candidati.' 
And  as  it  so  often  happens  that  in  seeking  in- 
formation upon  one  subject  we  obtain  it  upon 
another,  so  will  it  probably  be  here  ;  for  in  fully 
learning  what  this  custom  was,  you  will  hardly 
fail  to  learn  how  we  obtained  '  ambition,'  what 
originally  it  meant,  and  how  Milton  should  have 
written — 

'  To  reign  is  worth  ambition,  though  in  hell. 

Or  again,  any  one  who  knows  so  much  as 
that  •  verbum '  means  a  word,  might  well  be 
struck  by  the  fact  (and  if  he  followed  it  up 
would  be  led  far  into  the  relation  of  the  parts  of 
speech  to  one  another),  that  in  grammar  it  is 
not  employed  to  signify  any  word  whatsoever. 


320      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words. 


LECT, 


but  restricted  to  the  verb  alone ;  '  verbum '  is 
the  verb.  Surely  here  is  matter  for  reflection. 
What  gives  to  the  verb  the  right  to  monopolize 
the  dignity  of  being  '  the  word  '  ?  Is  it  because 
the  verb  is  the  animating  power,  the  vital  prin- 
ciple of  every  sentence,  and  that  without  which 
understood  or  uttered,  no  sentence  can  exist  ? 
or  can  you  offer  any  other  reason  ?  I  leave  this 
to  your  own  consideration. 

We  call  certain  books  '  classics.'  We  have 
indeed  a  double  use  of  the  word,  for  we  speak 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  as  the  '  classical '  lan- 
guages, and  the  great  writers  in  these  as  '  the 
classics '  ;  while  at  other  times  you  hear  of  a 
4  classical '  English  style,  or  of  English  '  classics.' 
Now '  classic '  is  connected  plainly  with  '  classis.' 
What  then  does  it  mean  in  itself,  and  how  has 
it  arrived  at  this  double  use  ?  '  The  term  is 
drawn  from  the  political  economy  of  Rome. 
Such  a  man  was  rated  as  to  his  income  in  the 
third  class,  such  another  in  the  fourth,  and  so 
on  ;  but  he  who  was  in  the  highest  was  em- 
phatically said  to  be  of  the  class,  "  classicus  " — 
a  class  man,  without  adding  the  number,  as  in 
that  case  superfluous  ;  while  all  others  were  infra 
classem.  Hence,  by  an  obvious  analogy,  the 
best  authors  were  rated  as  "  classici,"  or  men  of 
the  highest  class  ;  just  as  in  English  we  say 
"men  of  rank"  absolutely,  for  men  who  are  in 
the  highest  ranks  of  the  state.'  The  mental 
process  by  which  this  title,  which  would  apply 


Classics  why  so  called.  321 


rightly  to  the  best  authors  in  all  languages, 
came  to  be  restricted  to  those  only  in  two,  and 
these  two  to  be  claimed,  to  the  seeming  exclu- 
sion of  all  others,  as  the  classical  languages,  is 
one  constantly  recurring,  making  itself  felt  in  all 
regions  of  human  thought  ;  to  which  therefore 
I  would  in  passing  call  your  attention,  though 
I  cannot  now  do  more. 

There  is  one  circumstance  which  you  must 
by  no  means  suffer  to  escape  your  own  notice, 
nor  that  of  your  pupils — namely,  that  words  out 
of  number,  which  are  now  employed  only  in  a 
figurative  sense,  did  yet  originally  rest  on  some 
fact  of  the  outward  world,  vividly  presenting 
itself  to  the  imagination  ;  which  fact  the  word 
has  incorporated  and  knit  up  with  itself  for  ever. 
If  I  may  judge  from  my  own  experience,  few 
intelligent  boys  would  not  feel  that  they  had 
gained  something,  when  made  to  understand 
that  '  to  insult '  means  properly  to  leap  as  on 
the  prostrate  body  of  a  foe  ;  '  to  affront,'  to 
strike  him  on  the  face  ;  that  '  to  succour '  means 
by  running  to  place  oneself  under  one  that 
is  falling  ;  '  to  relent,'  (connected  with  '  lentus,') 
to  slacken  the  swiftness  of  one's  pursuit ;  * 
'  to  reprehend,'  to  lay  hold  of  one  with  the 
intention  of  forcibly  pulling  him  back  ;  'to 
exonerate/  to  discharge  of  a  burden,  ships  being 


•  •  But  nothing  might  relent 'his  hasty  flight,'  Spenser 
F.  Q.  iii.  4. 

Y 


322      Schoolmaster s  Use  of  Words. 


exonerated  once  ;  that  '  to  be  examined  '  means 
to  be  weighed.  They  would  be  pleased  to 
learn  that  a  man  is  called  '  supercilious,'  be- 
cause haughtiness  with  contempt  of  others  ex- 
presses itself  by  the  raising  of  the  eyebrows  or 
'  supercilium  ' ;  that  '  subtle '  (subtilis,  connected 
with  texere)  is  literally  '  fine-spun ' ;  that 
'  crucial '  (from  crux)  implies  an  '  instance  '  which 
points  the  way  to  an  enquirer  like  a  sign-post ;  * 
that  a  l  companion  '  is  one  with  whom  we  share 
our  bread,  a  messmate ;  that  a  '  sarcasm '  is 
properly  such  a  lash  inflicted  by  the  '  scourge  of 
the  tongue '  as  brings  away  the  flesh  after  it ; 
with  much  more  in  the  same  kind. 

'  Trivial '  is  a  word  borrowed  from  the  life. 
Mark  three  or  four  persons  standing  idly  at  the 
point  where  one  street  bisects  at  right  angles 
another,  and  discussing  there  the  idle  nothings 
of  the  day  ;  there  you  have  the  living  explana- 
tion of  'trivial,'  'trivialities,'  such  as  no  expla- 
nation not  rooting  itself  in  the  etymology  would 
ever  give  you,  or  enable  you  to  give  to  others. 
You  have  there  the  '  tres  vise,'  the  '  trivium ' ;  and 
'  trivialities '  properly  mean  such  talk  as  is  holden 
by  those  idle  loiterers  that  gather  at  this  meet- 
ing of  three  roads.t    '  Rivals '  properly  are  those 


9  See  Bacon's  Novum  Organon,  II.  xxxvi. 
t  But   'trivial'  may  be   from    'trivium'    in   another 
sense  :  that  is,  from  the  '  trivium,'  or  three  preparatory 


»«•  Rival,  Relaxation.  323 

who  dwell  on  the  banks  of  the  same  river.  But 
as  all  experience  shows,  there  is  no  such  fruitful 
source  of  contention  as  a  water-right,  and  these 
would  be  often  at  strife  with  one  another  in 
regard  of  the  periods  during  which  they  seve- 
rally had  a  right  to  the  use  of  the  stream, 
turning  it  off  into  their  own  fields  before  the 
time,  or  leaving  open  the  sluices  beyond  the 
time,  or  in  other  ways  interfering,  or  being 
counted  to  interfere,  with  the  rights  of  their 
neighbours.  And  in  this  way  '  rivals  '  came  to 
be  applied  to  any  who  were  on  any  grounds  in 
unfriendly  competition  with  one  another. 

By  such  teaching  as  this  you  may  often  im- 
prove, and  that  without  turning  play-time  into 
lesson-time,  the  hours  of  relaxation  and  amuse- 
ment. But  '  relaxation,'  on  which  we  have  just 
lighted  as  by  chance,  must  not  escape  us.  How 
can  the  bow  be  '  relaxed  '  or  slackened  (for  this 
is  the  image),  which  has  not  been  bent,  whose 
string  has  never  been  drawn  tight  ?  Having 
drawn  tight  the  bow  of  our  mind  by  earnest  toil, 
we  may  then  claim  to  have  it  from  time  to  time 
'  relaxed.'  Having  been  attentive  and  assiduous 
then,  but  not  otherwise,  we  may  claim  '  relaxa- 


disciplines, — grammar,  arithmetic,  and  geometry, — as 
distinguished  from  the  four  more  advanced,  or  '  quad- 
rivium ' ;  these  and  those  together  being  esteemed  in  the 
Middle  Ages  to  constitute  a  complete  liberal  education. 
Preparatory  schools  were  often  called  '  trivial  schools,' 
as  occupying  themselves  with  the  '  trivium.' 

Y  2 


324      Sc/wohnaster's  Use  of  Words.       lbct. 

tion '  and  amusement.  But  'attentive'  and 
'  assiduous '  are  themselves  words  which  will 
repay  us  to  understand  exactly  what  they  mean. 
He  is  '  assiduous '  who  sits  close  to  his  work  ;  he 
is  'attentive,'  who,  being  taught,  stretches  out 
his  neck  that  so  he  may  not  lose  a  word.  '  Dili- 
gence '  too  has  its  lesson.  Derived  from  '  diligo,' 
to  love,  it  reminds  us  that  the  secret  of  true 
industry  in  our  work  is  love  of  that  work.  And 
as  truth  is  wrapped  up  in  '  diligence,'  what  a  lie, 
on  the  other  hand,  lurks  in  '  indolence,'  or,  to 
speak  more  accurately,  in  our  present  employ- 
ment of  it !  This,  from  '  in  '  and  '  doleo,'  not  to 
grieve,  is  properly  a  state  in  which  we  have  no 
grief  or  pain  ;  and  employed  as  we  now  employ 
it,  suggests  to  us  that  indulgence  in  sloth  con- 
stitutes for  us  the  truest  negation  of  pain.  Now 
no  one  would  wish  to  deny  that  *  pain '  and 
'pains'  are  often  nearly  allied  ;  but  yet  these 
pains  hand  us  over  to  true  pleasures ;  while 
indolence  is  so  far  from  yielding  that  good  which 
it  is  so  forward  to  promise,  that  Cowper  spoke 
only  truth,  when,  perhaps  meaning  to  witness 
against  the  falsehood  I  have  just  denounced, 
he  spoke  of 

'  Lives  spent  in  i?idolence,  and  therefore  sad,' 

not  '  therefore  glad,1  as  the  word  '  indolence ' 
would  fain  have  us  to  believe. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  these  studies 
I  have  been  urging  may  be  turned  to  account. 


VII. 


Rome  Antinational.  325 


Doubtless   you    will   seek   to   cherish   in   your 
scholars,  to  keep  lively  in  yourselves,  that  spirit 
and  temper  which  find  a  special  interest  in  all 
relating  to  the  land  of  our  birth,  that  land  which 
the  providence  of  God  has  assigned  as  the  sphere 
of  our  life's  task  and  of  theirs.     Our  schools  are 
called  '  national,'  *  and  if  we  would  have  them 
such  in  reality,  we  must  neglect   nothing  that 
will    foster  a  national  spirit  in  them.    I   know 
not  whether  this  is  sufficiently  considered  among 
us  ;  yet  certainly  we  cannot  have  Church-schools 
worthy  the  name,  least  of  all  in  England,  unless 
they  are  truly  national  as  well.     It  is  the  anti- 
national  character  of  the  Roman  Catholic  system 
which  perhaps  more  than  all  else  offends  English- 
men ;  and  if  their  sense  of  this  should  ever  grow 
weak,  their  protest  against  that  system  would 
soon  lose  much  of  its  energy  and  strength.     But 
here,  as  everywhere  else,  knowledge  must  be  the 
food  of  love.     Your  pupils  must   know   some- 
thing about  England,  if  they  are  to  love  it ;  they 
must  see  some  connexion  of  its  past  with  its 
present,  of  what  it  has  been  with  what  it  is,  if 
they  are  to  feel  that  past  as  anything  to  them. 

And  as  no  impresses  of  the  past  are  so 
abiding,  so  none,  when  once  attention  has  been 
awakened  to  them,  are  so  self-evident  as  those 
which  names  preserve;  although,  without  this 
calling  of  the  attention  to  them,  the  most  broad 

•  This  was  written  in  England,  and  in  the  year  1851. 


326       Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.       lkct. 

and  obvious  of  these  foot-prints  which  the  past 
time  has  left  may  continue  to  escape  our  obser- 
vation to  the  end  of  our  lives.  Leibnitz  tells  us, 
and  one  can  quite  understand,  the  delight  with 
which  a  great  German  Emperor,  Maximilian  I., 
discovered  that  '  Habsburg,'  or  '  Hapsburg,'  the 
ancestral  name  of  his  house,  really  had  a  mean- 
ing, one  moreover  full  of  vigour  and  poetry. 
This  he  did,  when  he  heard  it  by  accident  on 
the  lips  of  a  Swiss  peasant,  no  longer  cut  short 
and  thus  disguised,  but  in  its  original  fulness, 
'  Habichtsburg,'  or  '  Hawk's-Tower,'  being  no 
doubt  the  name  of  the  castle  which  was  the 
cradle  of  his  race.*  Of  all  the  thousands  of 
Englishmen  who  are  aware  that  Angles  and 
Saxons  established  themselves  in  this  island, 
and  that  we  are  in  the  main  descended  from 
them,  it  would  be  curious  to  know  how  many 
have  realized  to  themselves  a  fact  so  obvious  as 
that  this  '  England '  means  '  Angle-land,'  or  that 
in  the  names  'Essex,'  'Sussex,'  and  'Middle- 
sex,' we  preserve  a  record  of  East  Saxons, 
South  Saxons,  and  Middle  Saxons,  who  occu- 
pied those  several  portions  of  the  land  ;  or  that 
'  Norfolk  '  and  '  Suffolk  '  are  two  broad  divisions 
of  '  northern '  and  '  southern  folk,'  into  which 
the  East  Anglian  kingdom  was  divided.  'Corn- 
wall '  does  not  bear  its  origin  quite  so  plainly 
upon  its  front,  or  tell  its  story  so  that  every  one 


Opp.  vol.  vi.  pt.  2.  p.  20, 


Wales,  Cornwall.  327 


who  runs  may  read.  At  the  same  time  its 
secret  is  not  hard  to  attain  to.  As  the  Teutonic 
immigrants  advanced,  such  of  the  British  popu- 
lation as  were  not  either  destroyed  or  absorbed 
by  them  retreated,  as  we  all  have  learned,  into 
Wales  and  Cornwall,  that  is,  till  they  could 
retreat  no  further.  The  fact  is  evidently  pre- 
served in  the  name  of  'Wales,'  which  means 
properly  '  The  foreigners,' — the  nations  of  Teu- 
tonic blood  calling  all  bordering  tribes  by  this 
name.  But  though  not  quite  so  apparent  on 
the  surface,  this  fact  is  also  preserved  in  '  Corn- 
wall,' written  formerly  '  Cornwales,'  or  the  land 
inhabited  by  the  Welsh  of  the  Corn  or  Horn. 
The  chroniclers  uniformly  speak  of  North  Wales 
and  Corn-Wales.*  These  Angles,  Saxons,  and 
Britons  or  Welshmen,  about  whom  our  pupils 
may  be  reading,  will  be  to  them  more  like 
actual  men  of  flesh  and  blood,  who  indeed  trod 
this  same  soil  which  we  are  treading  now,  when 
we  can  thus  point  to  traces  surviving  to  the 
present  day,  which  they  have  left  behind  them, 
and  which  England,  as  long  as  it  is  England, 
will  retain. 

The  Danes  too  have  left  their  marks  on  the 
land.  We  all  probably,  more  or  less,  are  aware 
how  much  Danish  blood  runs  in  English  veins  ; 
what  large  colonies  from  Scandinavia  (for  as 
many  may  have  come  from    Norway  as   from 

*  [See    Anglo-Saxon    Chronicle,    year    997,    where 
mention  is  made  of  the  Cornivealas,  the  Cornish  people.] 


328      Schoolmaster s  Use  of  Words.       uct, 


modern  Denmark),  settled  in  some  parts  of  this 
island.  It  will  be  interesting  to  show  that  the 
limits  of  this  Danish  settlement  and  occupation 
may  even  now  be  confidently  traced  by  the  con- 
stant recurrence  in  all  such  districts  of  the  names 
of  towns  and  villages  ending  in  '  by,'  which 
signified  in  their  language  a  dwelling  or  single 
village  ;  as  Nether^/,  Appleby,  DerZy,  Whitby, 
Kugiry.  Thus  if  you  examine  closely  a  map  of 
Lincolnshire,  one  of  the  chief  seats  of  the  Danish 
settlement,  you  will  find  one  hundred,  or  well 
nigh  a  fourth  part,  of  the  towns  and  villages  to 
have  this  ending,  the  whole  coast  being  studded 
with  them — they  lie  nearly  as  close  to  one 
another  as  in  Sleswick  itself;*  while  here  in 
Hampshire  '  by,'  as  such  a  termination,  is  utterly 
unknown.  Or  again,  draw  a  line  transversely 
through  England  from  Canterbury  by  London 
to  Chester,  the  line,  that  is,  of  the  great  Roman 
road,  called  Watling  Street,  and  north  of  this 
six  hundred  instances  of  the  occurrence  of  the 
same  termination  may  be  found,  while  to  the 
south  there  are  almost  none.  '  Thorpe,'  equi- 
valent to  the  German  '  dorf,'  as  Bishopst/ior/te, 
AXthorp,  tells  the  same  tale  of  a  Norse  occupa- 
tion of  the  soil ;  and  the  terminations,  somewhat 
rarer,  of  '  thwaite,'  '  haugh,'  '  garth,'  '  ness,'  do 
the  same  no  less.  On  the  other  hand,  where, 
as  in  this  south  of  England,  the  '  hams  '  abound 


*  Pott,  Etym.  Forsch.  vol.  ii.  pt.  2,  p.  11 72. 


▼n.  Ham,  Worthy,  Stoke.  329 

(the  word  is  identical  with  our  '  home '),  as 
Bucking/^7/2,  Eg/ia7?z,  Shoretiam,  there  you  may 
be  sure  that  not  Norsemen  but  West  Germans 
took  possession  of  the  soil.  '  Worth/  or  'worthy,' 
tells  the  same  story,  as  Boszvort/i,  ¥L\r\gsworthy  ;* 
the  '  stokes '  in  like  manner,  as  Basingstoke, 
Itchenstoke,  are  Saxon,  being  (as  some  suppose) 
places  stockaded,  with  stocks  or  piles  for  defence. 
You  are  yourselves  learning,  or  hereafter  you 
may  be  teaching  others,  the  names  and  number 
of  the  English  counties  or  shires.  What  a  dull 
routine  task  for  them  and  for  you  this  may  be, 
supplying  no  food  for  the  intellect,  no  points 
of  attachment  for  any  of  its  higher  powers  to 
take  hold  of!  And  yet  in  these  two  little 
words,  '  shire '  and  '  county,'  if  you  would  make 
them  render  up  even  a  small  part  of  their 
treasure,  what  lessons  of  English  history  are 
contained  !  One  who  knows  the  origin  of  these 
names,  and  how  we  come  to  possess  such  a 
double  nomenclature,  looks  far  into  the  social 
condition  of  England  in  that  period  when  the 
strong  foundations  of  all  that  has  since  made 
England  glorious  and  great  were  being  laid  ;  by 
aid  of  these  words  may  detect  links  which  bind 
its  present  to  its  remotest  past ;  for  of  lands  as 
of  persons  it  may  be  said,  '  the  child  is  father 
of  the  man.'  '  Shire '  is  connected  with  '  shear,' 
•  share,'  and  is  properly  a  portion  '  shered '  or 


•  See  Sweet's  Oldest  English  Texts  (index), 


330      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words.       >-kct. 

'  shorn  '  off.*  When  a  Saxon  king  would  create 
an  earl,  it  did  not  lie  in  men's  thoughts,  accus- 
tomed as  they  were  to  deal  with  realities,  that 
such  could  be  a  merely  titular  creation,  or  exist 
without  territorial  jurisdiction  ;  and  a  '  share  '  or 
'shire'  was  assigned  him  to  govern,  which  also 
gave  him  his  title.  But  at  the  Conquest  this 
Saxon  officer  was  displaced  by  a  Norman,  the 
'  earl '  by  the  '  count ' — this  title  of '  count,'  bor- 
rowed from  the  later  Roman  empire,  meaning 
originally  '  companion  '  (comes),  one  who  had 
the  honour  of  being  closest  companion  to  his 
leader  ;  and  the  '  shire '  was  now  the  '  county  ' 
(comitatus),  as  governed  by  this  'comes.'  In 
that  singular  and  inexplicable  fortune  of  words, 
which  causes  some  to  disappear  and  die  out 
under  the  circumstances  apparently  most  favour- 
able for  life,  others  to  hold  their  ground  when 
all  seemed  against  them, '  count '  has  disappeared 
from  the  titles  of  English  nobility,  while  '  earl ' 
has  recovered  its  place  ;  although  in  evidence  of 
the  essential  identity  of  the  two  titles,  or  offices 
rather,  the  wife  of  the  earl  is  entitled  a  '  coun- 
tess '  ;  and  in  further  memorial  of  these  great 
changes  that  so  long  ago  came  over  our  land, 
the    two    names   '  shire  '  and    '  county '  equally 


*  [It  must  be  confessed  that  there  are  insuperable 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  connecting  Anglo-Saxon  scir 
with  the  verb  sceran,  to  shear,  and  of  explaining  it  as 
equivalent  to  '  shorn  off.'  The  derivation  of  '  shire '  has 
not  yet  been  ascertained.] 


VII. 


Hundred.  331 


survive  as  in  the  main  interchangeable  words  in 
our  mouths. 

A  large  part  of  England,  all  that  portion  of 
it  which  the  Saxons  occupied,  is  divided  into 
1  hundreds.'  Have  you  ever  asked  yourselves 
what  this  division  means,  for  something  it  must 
mean  ?  The  '  hundred  '  is  supposed  to  have  been 
originally  a  group  or  settlement  of  one  hundred 
free  families  of  Saxon  incomers.  If  this  was  so, 
we  have  at  once  an  explanation  of  the  strange 
disproportion  between  the  area  of  the  '  hundred  ' 
in  the  southern  and  in  the  more  northern  coun- 
ties— the  average  number  of  square  miles  in  a 
1  hundred  '  of  Sussex  or  Kent  being  about  four 
and  twenty ;  of  Lancashire  more  than  three 
hundred.  The  Saxon  population  would  naturally 
be  far  the  densest  in  the  earlier  settlements  of 
the  east  and  south,  while  more  to  west  and  north 
their  tenure  would  be  one  rather  of  conquest 
than  of  colonization,  and  the  free  families  much 
fewer  and  more  scattered.*  But  further  you 
have  noticed,  I  dare  say,  the  exceptional  fact 
that  the  county  of  Sussex,  besides  the  division 
into  hundreds,  is  divided  also  into  six  '  rapes  ' ; 
thus  the  '  rape '  of  Bramber  and  so  on.  [This 
'  rape '  is  connected  by  Lappenberg,  ii.  405  ( 1 88 1 ), 
with  the  Icel.  hreppr,  which  according  to  the 
Gragas  was  a  district  in  which  twenty  or  more 
peasants  maintained  one  poor  person]. 

•  Kemble,  The  Saxons  in  England,  vol.  i.  p.  420; 
Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  E?igland,  p.  98. 


332       Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words. 


Let  us  a  little  consider,  in  conclusion,  how 
we  may  usefully  bring  our  etymologies  and 
other  notices  of  words  to  bear  on  the  religious 
teaching  which  we  would  impart  in  our  schools. 
To  do  this  with  much  profit  we  must  often  deal 
with  words  as  the  Queen  does  with  the  gold  and 
silver  coin  of  the  realm.  When  this  has  been 
current  long,  and  by  often  passing  from  man  to 
man,  with  perhaps  occasional  clipping  in  dis- 
honest hands,  has  lost  not  only  the  clear  bright- 
ness, the  well-defined  sharpness  of  outline,  but 
much  of  the  weight  and  intrinsic  value  which  it 
had  when  first  issued  from  the  royal  mint,  it  is 
the  sovereign's  prerogative  to  recall  it,  and  issue 
it  anew,  with  the  royal  image  stamped  on  it 
afresh,  bright  and  sharp,  weighty  and  full,  as  at 
first.  Now  to  a  process  such  as  this  the  true 
mint-masters  of  language,  and  all  of  us  may  be 
such,  will  often  submit  the  words  which  they 
use.  Where  use  and  custom  have  worn  away 
their  significance,  we  too  may  recall  and  issue 
them  afresh.  With  how  many  it  has  thus  fared  ! 
— for  example,  with  one  which  will  be  often  in 
your  mouths.  You  speak  of  the  '  lessons  '  of  the 
day  ;  but  what  is  '  lessons  '  here  for  most  of  us 
save  a  lazy  synonym  for  the  morning  and  evening 
chapters  appointed  to  be  read  in  church  ?  But 
realize  what  the  Church  intended  in  calling  these 
chapters  by  this  name  ;  namely,  that  they  should 
be  the  daily  instruction  of  her  children  ;  listen 
to  them  yourselves  as  such  ;  lead  your  scholars 


vii.  Lessons,  Bible.  333 

to  regard  them  as  such,  and  in  this  use  of 
'  lessons '  what  a  lesson  for  every  one  of  us  there 
may  be  !  *  '  Bible '  itself,  while  we  not  irreve- 
rently use  it,  may  yet  be  no  more  to  us  than  the 
verbal  sign  by  which  we  designate  the  written 
Word  of  God.  Keep  in  mind  that  it  properly 
means  '  the  book  '  and  nothing  more  ;  that  once 
it  could  be  employed  of  any  book  (in  Chaucer  it 
is  so),  and  what  matter  of  thought  and  reflection 
lies  in  this  our  present  restriction  of  '  bible '  to 
one  book,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others  !  So 
strong  has  been  the  sense  of  Holy  Scripture 
being  '  the  Book,'  the  worthiest  and  best,  that 
book  which  explains  all  other  books,  standing 
up  in  their  midst, — J»ke  Joseph's  kingly  sheaf, 
to  which  all  the  othei  sheaves  did  obeisance, — 
that  this  name  of  '  Bible  '  or  '  Book  '  has  been 
restrained  to  it  alone :  just  as  '  Scripture ' 
means  no  more  than  '  writing  ' ;  but  this  inspired 
Writing  has  been  acknowledged  so  far  above 
all  other  writings,  that  this  name  also  it  has 
obtained  as  exclusively  its  own. 

Again,  something  may  be  learned  from  know- 
ing that  the  '  surname,'  as  distinguished  from  the 
1  Christian  '  name,  is  the  name  over  and  above, 
not '  sire  '-name,  or  name  received  from  the  father, 
as  some  explain,  but '  sur  '-name  (super  nomen). 
There   was    never,  that    is,  a  time  when  every 


*  [Still  etymologically  lessons  mean  simply  '  readings, 
the  word  representing  French  U^ons  =  Latin  lectiones.} 


334      Schoolmaster's  Use  of  Words.       user. 


baptized  man  had  not  a  Christian  name,  the  re- 
cognition of  his  personal  standing  before  God  ; 
while  the  surname,  the  name  expressing  his  re- 
lation, not  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  to  a 
worldly  society,  is  of  much  later  growth,  super- 
added to  the  other,  as  the  word  itself  declares. 
What  a  lesson  at  once  in  the  growing  up  of  a 
human  society,  and  in  the  contrast  between  it 
and  the  heavenly  Society  of  the  Church,  might 
be  appended  to  this  explanation  !  There  was 
a  period  when  only  a  few  had  surnames ;  had, 
that  is,  any  significance  in  the  order  of  things 
temporal ;  while  the  Christian  name  from  the 
first  was  the  possession  of  every  baptized  man. 
All  this  might  be  brought  usefully  to  bear 
on  your  exposition  of  the  first  words  in  the 
Catechism. 

There  are  long  words  from  the  Latin  which, 
desire  as  we  may  to  use  all  plainness  of  speech, 
we  cannot  do  without,  nor  find  their  adequate 
substitutes  in  homelier  parts  of  our  language  ; 
words  which  must  always  remain  the  vehicles  of 
much  of  that  truth  whereby  we  live.  Now  in 
explaining  these,  make  it  your  rule  always  to 
start,  where  you  can,  from  the  derivation,  and  to 
return  to  that  as  often  as  you  can.  Thus  you 
wish  to  explain  '  revelation.'  How  much  will  be 
gained  if  you  can  attach  some  distinct  image  to 
the  word,  one  to  which  your  scholars,  as  often  as 
they  hear  it,  may  mentally  recur.  Nor  is  this 
difficult.     God's  '  revelation  '    of   Himself  is   a 


vn  Revelation,  Absohition.  335 

drawing  back  of  the  veil  or  curtain  which  con- 
cealed Him  from  men  ;  not  man  finding  out  God, 
but  God  discovering  Himself  to  man  ;  all  which 
is  contained  in  the  word.  Or  you  wish  to 
explain  '  absolution.'  Many  will  know  that  it 
has  something  to  do  with  the  pardon  of  sins  ; 
but  how  much  more  accurately  will  they  know 
this,  when  they  know  that  '  to  absolve '  means 
'  to  loosen  from  '  :  God's  '  absolution  '  of  men 
being  his  releasing  of  them  from  the  bands  of 
those  sins  with  which  they  were  bound.  Here 
every  one  will  connect  a  distinct  image  with 
the  word,  such  as  will  always  come  to  his  help 
when  he  would  realize  what  its  precise  meaning 
may  be.  That  which  was  done  for  Lazarus 
naturally,  the  Lord  exclaiming,  '  Loose  him, 
and  let  him  go,'  the  same  is  done  spiritually 
for  us,  when  we  receive  the  '  absolution  '  of  our 
sins. 

Tell  your  scholars  that  '  atonement '  means 
'  at-one-ment ' — the  setting  at  one  of  those  who 
were  at  twain  before,  namely  God  and  man,  and 
they  will  attach  to  '  atonement'  a  definite  mean- 
ing, which  perhaps  in  no  way  else  it  would  have 
possessed  for  them  ;  and,  starting  from  this 
point,  you  may  muster  the  passages  in  Scripture 
which  describe  the  sinner's  state  as  one  of  sepa- 
ration, estrangement,  alienation,  from  God,  the 
Christian's  state  as  one  in  which  he  walks 
together  with  God,  because  the  two  have  been 
set  •  at  one.'      Or   you    have  to  deal  with  the 


336      Schoolmaster  s  Use  of  Words,     lkct. 

following, '  to  redeem,' '  Redeemer,' '  redemption.' 
Lose  not  yourselves  in  vague  generalities,  but 
fasten  on  the  central  point  of  these,  that  they 
imply  a  '  buying,'  and  not  this  merely,  but  a 
'  buying  back  '  ;  and  then  connect  with  them, 
so  explained,  the  whole  circle  of  statements  in 
Scripture  which  rest  on  this  image,  which  speak 
of  sin  as  a  slavery,  of  sinners  as  bondsmen  of 
Satan,  of  Christ's  blood  as  a  ransom,  of  the 
Christian  as  one  restored  to  his  liberty. 

Many  words  more  suggest  themselves  ;  I  will 
not  urge  more  than  one  ;  but  that  one,  because 
in  it  is  a  lesson  more  for  ourselves  than  for 
others,  and  with  such  I  would  fain  bring  these 
lectures  to  a  close.  How  solemn  a  truth  we 
express  when  we  name  our  work  in  this  world 
our  '  vocation,'  or,  which  is  the  same  in  homelier 
Anglo-Saxon,  our  '  calling.'  What  a  calming, 
elevating,  ennobling  view  of  the  tasks  appointed 
us  in  this  world,  this  word  gives  us.  We  did 
not  come  to  our  work  by  accident ;  we  did  not 
choose  it  for  ourselves  ;  but,  in  the  midst  of 
much  which  may  wear  the  appearance  of  acci- 
dent and  self-choosing,  came  to  it  by  God's 
leading  and  appointment.  How  will  this  con- 
sideration help  us  to  appreciate  justly  the 
dignity  of  our  work,  though  it  were  far  humbler 
work,  even  in  the  eyes  of  men,  than  that  of  any 
one  of  us  here  present !  What  an  assistance  in 
calming  unsettled  thoughts  and  desires,  such  as 
would  make  us  wish  to  be  something  else  than 


Calling,   Vocation.  337 


that  which  we  are  !  What  a  source  of  confiden  ce, 
when  we  are  tempted  to  lose  heart,  and  to  doubt 
whether  we  shall  carry  through  our  work  with 
any  blessing  or  profit  to  ourselves  or  to  others  ! 
It  is  our  '  vocation,'  not  our  choosing  but  our 
'  calling ' ;  and  He  who  '  called  '  us  to  it,  will,  if 
only  we  will  ask  Him,  fit  us  for  it,  and  strengthen 
us  in  it 


INDEX   OF  WORDS. 


PAGE 

PAGE 

Abbacinare  ...       76 

Assentator    .        . 

89 

Aborigines    . 

I69 

Assiduous     .         .         . 

324 

Absolution   . 

335 

Assimilation          .         ■ 

204 

Academy 

161 

Astonished  .         .        . 

322 

Acheron        . 

57 

Atavism        .         .         . 

212 

Affront          . 

321 

Athanasius    .         .         . 

35 

Agate  .         . 

159 

Athenae         .         .         • 

66 

Ai<rxp6s         , 

1 12 

Atlas    . 

161 

Aiutare         . 

103 

Atonement   .         .         . 

335 

Ajax     .         ■ 

3i 

Attentive      .         .         , 

324 

'AKpcoTTjpia^ei 

v       , 

76 

Atrius  Umber        .         . 

39 

Albern 

97 

Avr6raros      .          .           , 

222 

Albert . 

.      46 

Avernus        .         .         . 

58 

Albion           . 

-       54 

Avunculize   .         .         . 

223 

Alcoran         ( 

.     217 

Alderman 

.     181 

Bafomet        .         .         , 

36 

Alemanni 

.     187 

Baldachin     .         .         , 

157 

Alligator 

.     216 

Bantam         .         .         . 

160 

Alms    .         . 

•     232 

Banter           .         . 

221 

Ambition 

■     319 

Barb    . 

.     159 

America 

',     16 

7,   1  S3 

Barn     .         .         . 

177 

Amethyst 

.     176 

Barnacle       .         .         • 

176 

Ammonia 

■     162 

Basilisk 

.       62 

Ammonite 

.     162 

Bayonet 

•     157 

Analyse 

.     310 

Beatitas,  beatitudo 

.     210 

Ananas 

.     215 

Beguine 

•     235 

Anglia 

.     326 

Beldam 

.       78 

Animosity 

.       82 

Bergamot      .         • 

.     160 

Antistrophic 

•     213 

Bezant           .         . 

•     159 

Apocryphal 

.     243 

Bible   . 

•     333 

Argiletum 

•       58 

Biggen 

.     158 

Arras    . 

.     158 

Bilbao  . 

•     157 

Arsenic 

.     176 

Bishop           .         . 

.     232 

Artesian 

•     157 

Blackbird     •         . 

.     178 

Artful  . 

•       79 

Blackleg       .         .10 

5,   108 

"Aproi  . 

•     173 

Blague,  blagueur  . 

.     225 

Ascendancy 

•     175 

Bohemian 

.     168 

Asia  Minor 

.     188 

Bonaparte     . 

•       33 

Assassin 

.     141 

Bonhomie     .         . 

.       98 

Assentation 

•       9^ 

Boor     .         . 

•       78 

340                 Index  of 

Words. 

PACE      1 

PACK 

Boycott         .         . 

221 

Classical        .         . 

I50 

Brunt  .... 

312 

Classics         .         . 

320 

Buccaneer     . 

IO4 

Clesel            .         . 

36 

Burke  .... 

221 

Club     . 

119 

Cockatrice    .         . 

I48 

Cadaver        .         . 

239 

Cocytus         .         .         . 

57 

Cagot  .... 

234 

Collect 

236 

Calamitas      .          .         . 

I/O 

Columba 

38 

Calico  .... 

I58 

Companion  .         .         . 

322 

California     .         . 

239 

Conceit         .         .         . 

7S 

Calling 

336 

Conciliatrix  .         .         . 

105 

Cambric        .          .         ■ 

158 

Concomitance        .         . 

1S6 

Camelia 

I64 

Contidens      .         .         ■ 

122 

Camelopard . 

6l 

Convertisseur         .         « 

21S 

Canada         .         . 

239 

Convey          .          .         . 

104 

Canary          .         . 

l6o 

Copper          .         .         ■ 

158 

Candidate     .         .         . 

3*9 

Copperhead .         .         . 

108 

Candle          .         . 

177 

Cordwain      .         .         . 

158 

Cannibal 

239 

Cornwall       .         .         < 

326 

Canonical     . 

186 

Cosmopolite           . 

200 

Caprice 

52 

Cosmos         .         •         . 

189 

Capuchin 

.     154 

Costard-monger    . 

177 

Carbunculus 

64 

Count  . 

.     33o 

Cardinal 

141 

County          .          . 

■     33o 

Carp    . 

.       80 

Crafty  . 

.       79 

Carronade     . 

•     157 

Cravat .          .         • 

.     158 

Cassimere 

•     158 

Crawler         .          . 

.     108 

Catchpole     . 

•     "7 

Crocodile      .         . 

■       67 

Catholic        .       151,  15 

5.  186 

Crypt   • 

.     301 

Cavalloni 

•       49 

Crystal           .         . 

.     147 

Celadon 

.      165 

Cuckoo-flower 

•       59 

Celandine     . 

.       60 

Cunning        .         . 

.       79 

Cerf-volant  . 

.       61 

Curfew          .         . 

.     171 

Chalcedony  . 

•     159 

Curia  Romana 

•     "3 

Cheat,  cheater 

.     118 

Currant         .         . 

160 

Chevalier  d'industrie 

.     105 

Cynarctomachy     . 

.     223 

Chimerical    . 

.     161 

Cyprian         .         . 

.       35 

Chouan 

•     239 

Chrestus 

.       98 

Dabones       .         . 

.     222 

Christian      .                i{ 

56,  1S9 

Dactyle         .         . 

.       68 

Christology  . 

.     230 

Daft     . 

•       79 

Christus        .         c 

98 

Dahlia .         .         . 

.     164 

Church          .         ■ 

■      *34 

Daisy   .          .         . 

•       59 

Ciborium      .         . 

•     237 

Dalmatic       .         . 

.     158 

Cicerone       .         . 

.     116 

Damask         .         . 

.     158 

Clara    . 

•       38 

|   Damhele 

.     182 

Index  of  Words.                 341 

PAGE 

PAGE 

Damson 

.     160 

Ecstacy         .         .          8,  274 

Aavcu&raTos  . 

.     222 

E.oa.-;  e.a 

. 

Dapper 

.       80 

Eiectrum 

■     257 

Daric   . 

.      161 

Eieemosynar 

y 

.     232 

Days  of  the  Week 

.     178 

Elend  . 

•       70 

Decimate 

.     177 

E.inge 

•       70 

Dedal  . 

.      161 

and 

'.     ii 

8,  326 

Delator         .         . 

.     21S 

Ennui  . 

.     no 

Delf     . 

.     158 

'Exi^aip€jccuc 

a 

■       76 

Demonetize  .         . 

.     203 

Epicure 

.     161 

Demure         .         . 

79 

Epidamnus 

.      40 

Denigreur     . 

.       90 

Epiphanes 

35 

Derailler       .         . 

.     292 

Episcopal 

.     232 

Derayer         .         . 

.     202 

Erigena 

.     236 

Derrick 

.     163 

118 

Despecificate 

261 

Esco  harder 

165 

Desultory 

52 

Esemplastic 

,     210 

Desynonymize 

25* 

Essay   . 

229 

Dictator        .         . 

245 

Essene 

.     236 

Dilapidated  . 

6 

riuia 

210 

Diligence      .         . 

Essa   . 

71 

Dinde  .... 

Esthez 

-"- 

Dime  .... 

80 

-    .: 

9S 

Disastrous     . 

175 

EvXcr,  .a 

40 

Discernment 

287 

Eumenides 

40 

Discretion     . 

.    - 

Europe 

1S7 

Dissembly    . 

37 

Euxine 

40 

Dissimilation 

204 

Exonerate     . 

321 

Distemper     . 

1/4 

Expend,  expense  . 

172 

.    -.ny         .                151 

h  232 

Extradition  . 

--: 

Diversion 

8 

Extraforaneous 

223 

Divine           . 

37 

Dolomite 

165 

Facinus         .         . 

122 

Dominican   . 

38    , 

Faience 

159 

Donat  .... 

162 

Fancy  .         . 

310 

Donzelle       .         . 

182 

Favor  .         . 

22S 

ji."..a            .           ,           . 

93 

Fee 

•" 

Dormitantius          . 

33 

Fiacre  . 

166 

Dosones        .         . 

222 

Fire-water    . 

106 

Dragonnade           . 

21S 

}  '.:.:::'.     ■  :,r.'.  . 

69 

Drepanum    . 

55 

Florence 

57 

Druid  .... 

170 

Florida          . 

56 

Duffel  .... 

158 

Formica 

300 

Dunce .... 

'--; 

Forranate 
Fourmiller    . 

99 
53 

Eau  de  vie   .         .         . 

106 

Frank  . 

I 

o,  14 

a,  ii>7 

342                 Index  of  Words. 

PACE 

PAGE 

Frieze            .         . 

158 

Hansom        .         .         . 

165 

Fuchsia         4         .         ■ 

164 

Happiness    .         .         , 

99 

Fuller                     .         • 

38 

Haversack    .          .         . 

177 

Fustian          .         .         • 

158 

Heathen       .         .         . 

136 

Hector          .         .        , 

166 

Galloway      .         .         • 

159 

Helen                     .         , 

34 

Galvanism    .         .         • 

165 

Herculean     .         .         , 

161 

Gamboge      .         •         • 

159 

Hermeneutics        .         . 

180 

Gamin           .         .         • 

226 

Hermetic      .         .         . 

160 

Ganch           .         . 

77 

"E|iS      . 

93 

Garble.         .         .         . 

81 

Hidalgo        .          .         . 

241 

Gas      .... 

241 

Hildebrand  .         .         . 

34 

Gaunt            .         . 

3i 

Himalaya      .          .         , 

54 

Gauze  .... 

157 

Hipocras       .         .         . 

162 

Gene    .... 

no 

"O\os    . 

3°4 

Gentian 

162 

Homoousion          .         , 

25 

German,  Germany      18 

7,238 

Honnetete    .         .         . 

no 

Gigmanity     . 

223 

Honour         .         .          . 

101 

Giltcup 

59 

Hostia           .         .         . 

58 

Gipsy  .... 

168 

Hottentot     . 

239 

Glaubers 

161 

Huguenot     .         .         . 

235 

Glycyrize 

240 

Humanitas    .          .          , 

92 

Gnostic          .               15 

3,  J55 

Humility       .         .         , 

84 

Gobelin 

164 

Humour,  humours          , 

173 

Godsacre      .         .         . 

69 

Hundred       .          .          . 

33' 

Golden  knob         .         1 

63 

""YiroKoptfrffOia         .          , 

105 

Golden  rain  .         .         . 

60 

Hurricane     .         .         , 

170 

Golden  spears        .         ( 

56 

Hus                        .         . 

32 

Goldfinch     .         .         . 

62 

Good  people         .         . 

40 

Iapetus          .         .         , 

170 

Gordian        .         .         . 

161 

Idiot    . 

in 

ropyid&iv     .         •         1 

166 

'iSlWTTJS               .               .               , 

,     in 

Gospel          *        . 

186 

Idolatry        .         . 

194 

Gothic 

149 

Impatientia  .         .         , 

209 

Goulard        .         . 

164 

Impotens      .         . 

92 

Greek  .         .         • 

187 

Incivisme      .         . 

.     219 

Guillotine     .         .      16 

6,  219 

India    .         .         . 

.     187 

Guinea          .         . 

159 

Indigentia     .         . 

.     210 

Gulf  of  Lyons 

169 

Indigo .         .         . 

.     158 

Indo-European      . 

.     149 

Hablar 

.     121 

Indolence      .         . 

•     324 

Habler 

.     121 

Indolentia     .         .     20 

8,  209 

Habsburg     . 

.     326 

Ineptus          .         . 

.     120 

Haft     . 

.     312 

Iners    .         .         • 

•      59 

Halcyon       .         . 

.      63 

Infanticidium         . 

.     198 

Hands           •         . 

.     100 

Influence       .         . 

•     175 

Index  of  Words.                 343 

PAGB 

*AGE 

Innocent 

98 

Leonine         .         .         .     244 

Insult  .... 

321 

Leopard        , 

148 

Integrity       .         . 

88 

Lesson           , 

333 

Invidentia     .         .         . 

209 

Letters          , 

306 

Invidia         .        .         . 

208 

Lewd    .         , 

80 

Irenseus         .         .         . 

38 

Libertine      , 

91 

Isothermal    .         .         . 

212 

Library 

172 

Italy     .... 

187 

Licorice 
Lierre  .         . 

240 
217 

Jaherr  .... 

89 

Limbo .         , 

187 

Jalap    .... 

159 

Limner         , 

171 

Jane     .... 

158 

Lingot . 

217 

Japheth 

170 

Lollard 

235 

Jehovah        .         .         . 

170 

Long  pig 

103 

Jet        ...         . 

159 

Love-child 

104 

Journey         .         .         . 

177 

Lucubration 

177 

Jove     .... 

170 

Lumber 

171 

Jovial  .... 

175 

Lunacy 

180 

Jutland          .         .         . 

169 

Luscinia 
Lutheran 

-      65 

»53 

Ka\Ss  .... 

112 

Lyons,  Gulf  of 

169 

Karfunkel     .        . 

•      65 

Kartoffel       .         . 

215 

Macassar       .         , 

.     159 

Kerseymere  .        . 

.     158 

Macedonia    .         , 

187 

Ketzer .         .        . 

•     234 

Maculist        .         . 

.     108 

Kickshaws    .         . 

.     233 

Madagascar  . 

.     188 

Kind    . 

-      95 

Madeira        .        , 

.      56 

Kingfisher    . 

,       62 

Magnesia 

■     157 

Knave .         .         • 

.      77 

Magnet 

•     157 

Knobstick     . 

108 

Magnolia 
Mahomet 

.     164 
.      36 

Labarum       .         . 

237 

Majolica 

.     159 

Laburnum     . 

,      60 

Maleventum . 

.      40 

Lady-bird 

.      62 

Malevolentia 

.      76 

Lambiner 

.     165 

Malignant     . 

.     108 

Landau         . 

.     159 

Malmsey 

.     159 

Lanterner     .         . 

.     219 

Manes . 

■      36 

Larder 

.     177 

Manichxus   . 

•      36 

Latium          .         . 

.      58 

Mansard  e 

.     166 

Latro   .         .         . 

.     122 

Marah . 

•      3i 

Lazar,  lazaretto     . 

.     162 

Marechal,  marsha 

i 

.     181 

Leer     .         .         . 

•       79 

Margaret 

.      46 

Legend          .         . 

.     142 

Marivaudage 

.     166 

Leichtsinnig .         . 

.       79 

Marshal 

!      8 

i,  181 

Leman 

•       78 

Martinet 

.     165 

Lendemain  . 

.     217 

Mass    . 

• 

.     236 

344                 Index  of 

Words. 

PACK 

PAGE 

Matriarch 

.    223 

Negus ....     163 

Maudlin 

•       79 

Neologist 

.     210 

Mausoleum  .         . 

.     161 

Neutralization 

.     203 

Mawmet 

.     145 

New  Forest . 

.     178 

Megrim 

.     232 

Newt    . 

.     217 

McWoviKidw .         . 

.     222 

New  Testament 

,     186 

Menial          .         . 

.       78 

Nicotine 

.     164 

Mentor 

.     166 

Nightingale  . 

.       65 

Mephistopheles     . 

•     239 

Nirvana        .         , 

26 

Mercurial 

•     175 

Noah's  Ark . 

63 

Mere-grot     . 

•      65 

Nonna 

.     186 

Merkani 

.     240 

Norman 

.     187 

Merry  Dancers 

.      63 

N6<TTlfJLOS          . 

•       71 

Methodist     .         .15 

4.  274 

Novelist 

273 

Metrophanes 

•       36 

Noyade         .         , 

219 

Metternich   . 

•       36 

Nun     . 

.     186 

Miniature 

■     177 

Nydiot 

217 

Minion 

•       78 

Miscreant     . 

.     140 

Obligation,  oblige 

93 

Miser            .         . 

.       87 

Obsequium  . 

.     228 

Mithridate    . 

.     161 

Occisissimus 

222 

Mob     . 

.     220 

Octogamy    . 

223 

Momiers        .         . 

.     154 

Oculissimus 

222 

Monachus     •         . 

.     186 

Officious 

78 

Monk  .         .         . 

.     186 

Orgies . 

■       79 

Monody 

•     177 

Orrery. 

-     163 

Mons  Pileatus 

•       67 

Ottoman 

,     162 

Morbidezza  . 

.     "5 

Morea .          .         . 

55 

Padischah 

285 

Morganatic  .         . 

.     238 

Pagan  . 

135 

Morimo        .         . 

,       18 

Pain     .         , 

86 

Mors    . 

300 

Palace .         , 

177 

Mosaic 

237 

Palm  oil 

105 

Mouth           .         . 

81 

Pander          , 

167 

Mouton        .        .         , 

33 

Panic    . 

161 

Much,  mucho        .         , 

303 

Pantaloons 

162 

Mulierositas.         . 

210 

Panther        . 

300 

Muslin          .        . 

158 

Papable         , 
Paper  . 

212 
172 

Nabal  .... 

3i 

Paradise 

84 

Naomi          .         .         , 

31 

Paraffin 

240 

Naples          .         .         ■ 

178 

Paramour 

78 

Natal   .... 

58 

Parchment    . 

159 

Natolie         .         .         , 

217 

Parlar  . 

121 

Naturalist      .         .         , 

274 

Parler  . 

121 

Nausea          .         .         , 

178 

Pasquinade 

163 

Index  of  Words. 

345 

PAGE      | 

PAGK 

Passion         .         .        • 

91 

Pompifex      .         .         • 

36 

Pastime         .         .         . 

7 

Pope             .         .         • 

182 

Patata  .... 

215 

riovqpia             .             .             • 

88 

Patch  .... 

163 

Post      .          .          .          . 

314 

Paterine 

236 

Potato. 

214 

Patres  Conscripti  . 

238 

Pot  de  vin    .         . 

105 

Patruissimus . 

222 

Potus  . 

102 

Paulician       .          .         ■ 

236 

Poudre  de  succession     . 

103 

Pavaner         .         .         , 

S3 

Pransus          .          .          . 

102 

Pavo    .... 

300 

Prejudice,  prejudicial     . 

82 

Peace                      . 

112 

Prester  John 

236 

Peach  .... 

160 

Prime  Minister 

154 

Peacock        .         . 

299 

Privilegium  .         .         < 

37 

Pecore           .         . 

49 

Prometheus  .          .         > 

33 

Pecunia        .         .        5 

8,  172 

Probable       .         .         ■ 

275 

Pedant 

78 

Pronuba        .         .         < 

122 

Pelagius        .         . 

36 

Proser  .         .         .         . 

7S 

Pellegrino     .         .         , 

us 

Province       .         .         . 

238 

Pennaiism     .         .          , 

244 

Prude  . 

96 

Pentheus       .         .         . 

32 

Prussian        .         .         . 

187 

Peony  .         .         . 

,     161 

Perfide 

.     in 

Quadrivium .         .         . 

323 

Pert      . 

,      80 

Quarantine  .         .         < 

177 

Petrel  . 

62 

Quassia         .         .         , 

164 

Petroleuse     .         . 

,     220 

Quean,  queen        .         . 

182 

Pfaffe   . 

,     118 

Quince          .         .         < 

160 

Pheasant       .          .         , 

160 

Quintessence         .         « 

176 

Philadelphia          . 

>      33 

Quirites         .         .         . 

238 

Philippic       .         .         , 

161 

Philofelist     . 

223 

Rape    .         .         .         1 

.     33i 

Philosopher . 

229 

Rapture        .         .         < 

8 

4>i\6(TTopyos .         . 

"9 

Rationalist    .          ■ 

>     229 

Philpot    '      . 

•       39 

Ratten 

,     221 

Phlegethon  . 

•       57 

Ravishment .         .         , 

8 

Phoebe          .         . 

.     180 

Razzia            .         .         , 

220 

Physician      .         . 

.     206 

Redeemer     .         . 

-     336 

Piagnoni       . 

.     108 

Reformation           . 

.     152 

Pineapple     .         . 

.     216 

Refugee        .         . 

.     218 

Plague .         .         . 

•       87 

Regeneration         . 

.       8S 

Plantation     .         . 

.     274 

Rejoice          .         • 

.     112 

Plausible       .         . 

.       80 

Relaxation    .         . 

•     323 

Pcenitentia    .         . 

•     253 

Relent .          .          . 

.     321 

Poet     . 

.     205 

Religion        .         . 

9 

Poids    .         .         . 

•     309 

Renaissance .         . 

.     151 

Pois      .         .         . 

.     309 

Reprehend    .          . 

.     321 

Poix     . 

•     309 

Resentment  . 

.       81 

346                 Index  of 

Words. 

PAGE 

PACK 

Kesipiscentia 

253 

Senlac ....       66 

Retaliation   .         . 

81 

Sermo  .         < 

253 

Retract          .         .         . 

83 

Servator        , 

197 

Revelation    .         . 

334 

Severitas 

238 

Reynard        .         .         , 

167 

Shaddock 

164 

Rhubarb       .         .         , 

159 

Shakespeare 

38 

Ringleader   .         .         , 

78 

Shalloon 

158 

Rivals  .... 

322 

Sham    .         , 

220 

Rodomontade        . 

167 

Sheepish       , 

98 

Romantic 

150 

Sherry .         , 

159 

Rome  ...         1 

187 

Shire    .         , 

330 

Roquelaure  .         .          , 

163 

Short  pig 

103 

Rose-window         .         ■ 

69 

Sierra  .         . 

7 

Rossignol      .         .         . 

65 

Sign     . 

172 

Roue    .         .         . 

218 

Silhouette     . 

166 

Roundhead  .         . 

234 

Silk      . 

158 

Rubric           .          . 

177 

Silly     . 
Simony         , 

.      97 
162 

Sacrament    .         . 

138 

Simple          , 

96 

Saslig    .         .         . 

.       97 

Sincere          , 

322 

Salic     .         .          . 

239 

Siren    .         , 

300 

Salutificator .         . 

197 

Slave    . 

11 

Salvator        .         . 

196 

Slovo   . 

12 

Sangraal       .         . 

237 

Sniveller 

108 

Sansculotte  .         .         < 

219 

Solecism 

160 

Sarcasm        ,          .         , 

322 

Soliloquium 

228 

Sarcenet        .         .         . 

158 

SoS/tara           , 

100 

Sarcophagus          .         , 

177 

Sophist 

137 

Sardanapalisme 

165 

Sorbonne 

-      37 

Sardonic       .         . 

176 

Spaniel 

159 

Satanasius     . 

35 

Specious 

,      80 

Saturnine      .         . 

175 

Spencer 

163 

Saturnus       .         .         < 

238 

Spindle-side 

■      67 

Savage          .         .         < 

309 

Spirituel 

.     in 

Sbirri  .         .         .         < 

117 

Squatter 

.     182 

Scab    ...         1 

108 

Squirrel 

.       62 

Schadenfreude       . 

76 

Stellio  . 

62,  68 

Schalk 

,       80 

Stellionatus 

.       68 

Schlecht        .         . 

97 

Stentorian 

.     166 

Scripture       .         . 

333 

Stephen 

37,  46 

Secularization        . 

.     203 

Sterling 

•     159 

Sedakat         .          .         ( 

98 

Sterry  . 

•       35 

Segesta          .         .         , 

40 

Stipulation 

.     171 

Self-sufficient        .        . 

114 

Stirrups 

.     177 

Semitic         .         . 

149 

Stock   . 

•     315 

Seneschal      . 

81 

Stoke   . 

.     3^9 

Index  of 

Words. 

347 

PAGE 

PAGK 

Styx     ...               57 

Synonyms. 

Subtle  . 

322 

Nave,  ship 

266 

Succinum      .         « 

257 

Nay,  no     . 

269 

Succour         .         . 

321 

Revenge,  vengeance  . 

263 

Supercilious  .         . 

322 

Vindicta,  ultio  . 

262 

Superstition  . 

245 

Yea,  yes    . 

269 

Surname 

.     333 

Surplice 

•     177 

Tabinet                  .         . 

I64 

Susanna         . 

,      46 

Talent  . 

93 

Swindler 

•       78 

Tansy            .         .         . 

232 

Sword-side   . 

.       67 

Tantalize       .         .         . 

161 

Sychar .         . 

.       36 

Taprobane    .         .         , 

56 

Sycophant     . 

.     245 

Tarantula      .         .         . 

159 

Synonym 

.     249 

Tartufo          .         .          . 

215 

Tawdry          .          .         . 

80 

Synonyms. 

Temper         .         .         . 

173 

Abdicate,  desert          .     284 

Terrorisme    .         .         . 

219 

Abhor,   detest,    hate, 

Tertulia 

162 

loathe    .         .         .271 

Teuffel 

34 

Apprehend,     compre- 

Theocracy    . 

159 

hend      .         .         .     280 

Theotokos     . 

.       25 

Arrogant,        insolent, 

Thorpe 

.     328 

presumptuous          .     270 

Thrasonical  .         . 

167 

Astrology,  astronomy      267 

Tilbury 

.     159 

Authentic,  genuine     .     272 

Timeserver    . 

.       78 

Blanch,  whiten .         .     266 

Tinsel  . 

79 

Benefice,  fief     .         .     289 

Tobacco 

.     159 

Charity,  love      .         .     265 

Tolosa . 

•       36 

Cloke,  palliate  .         .     266 

Tolpatchery  . 

.     223 

Compulsion,      obliga- 

Tontine        .         . 

.     164 

tion        .         .         .     282 

Topaz  .         .         . 

.       64 

Congratulate,      felici- 

Tormentoso .         . 

.      40 

tate        .         .         .277 

Tort      . 

.     312 

Contrary,  opposite      .     281 

Tory     .          .         . 

•     153 

Despair,  diffidence     .     267 

Tott      . 

•       34 

Detraction,  slander     .     289 

Tragedy 

.     244 

Discover,  invent         .     278 

Transliteration 

.     203 

Education,  instruction     283 

Transport 

8 

Enthusiasm,         fanati- 

Transubstantiation       : 

26,  186 

cism       .         .         .     261 

Tribulation   . 

•       49 

Envy,  emulation         .     290 

Trinacria 

•       55 

Famine,  hunger          .     261 

Trinacris 

•       59 

Fancy,  imagination  259,  260 

Trinity 

.     186 

Illegible,  unreadable  .     266 

Triiicum 

.       5o 

Interference,   interpo- 

Trivial, trivium 

•     322 

sition 

.     269 

Turbanus 

.       36 

348 

Index  oj 

PAGE      I 

Words. 

PACK 

Turkey          .         . 

.     168 

Vitiositas      . 

2IO 

Turquoise     •         . 

.     159 

Vixerunt       . 

40 

Tyrant,  tyranny    . 

.     188 

Vocalitas       .         .         , 

209 

Vocation       .         .         , 

336 

Unfortunate .         . 

.      99 

Volcanic        .         .         , 

l6l 

Unitarian      . 

•     151 

Voltaic           . 

•        165 

Urbanus        . 

.     228 

Voluble 

8O 

Usignuolo 

.      66 

Volume          .         . 

.         172 

Vane    . 

•      35 

Waldenses     .         .       36,  23  <; 

Varlet  . 

.        .      78 

Wales  . 

•        327 

Vaticide        , 

.    223 

Wench           .         . 

•       79 

Verb     . 

.     320 

Whig    . 

•     153 

Verbum 

.     253,  319 

Whitsunday  . 

.     236 

Verite  . 

.     in 

Wiclif  . 

.       36 

Vernicle 

.     162 

Windfanner  . 

.      63 

Verres  . 

•      35 

Windhover   . 

•       63 

Vespasian 

.     164 

Worsted 

•     157 

Victima 

•      59 

Worth,  worthy 

•     329 

Vigilantius 

.      32 

Wrong           .         . 

•     312 

Villain. 

.      78,  129 

Vincentius 

37 

Virtue  . 

.       94 

Yankee          .         . 

.     239 

Virtuoso 

.     114 

Virtus  . 

.         .     115 

Zigeuner       .        . 

.    238 

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